A morning briefing

Listen to a morning briefing to practise and improve your listening skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Preparation

Transcript

Hi, everyone. I know you're all busy so I'll keep this briefing quick. I have some important information about a change in the management team. As you already know, our head of department, James Watson, is leaving his position at the end of this week. His replacement is starting at the end of the next month. In the meantime, we'll continue with our projects as usual.

I have two more quick points. Firstly, there will be some improvements made to the staff car park next month for a few weeks. It will be closed during that time.

Don't worry, we've found a solution. We can use the local church car park until our own one is ready. If you arrive before 8.30 a.m., please use our small car park on Brown Street, and if you arrive after that, you should go directly to the church car park. It's only a five-minute walk away. But they need it in the evenings, so you have to leave before 6 p.m. Sorry about that – I know how much you all love working late!

The other thing I wanted to tell you about is that the canteen has now introduced a cashless payment system. So, you can't use cash for payments any more. You can pay directly with your smartphone or you can pay using your company ID card. The total amount put on your company ID card comes off your salary at the end of each month.

OK. That's it? Are there any questions?

Task 1

TrueOrFalse_MjMyNDM=.xml

Task 2

Grouping_MjMyNDQ=.xml

Discussion

Who do you have to give information and instructions to? What about?

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Language level

A2 Pre-intermediate

I always have to give information and instructions to my son. He is only 5 years old and depends of me to do many things, like eating, brushing his teeth, taking a shower, studying and etc

It's not so easy as it sounds to give information and instruction to 5 years old kid. I have two kids (8 and 3) and all my instructions seem to go to waste ((

I often give instructions for my husband to take care of my children, when I am not at home. And sometimes I received instructions from my colleague when we work team together. When we have a new project, we always give information to the customer. Now I am giving instructions for the internship at my office.

I often need to provide information to my parents about different things like new technologies and new places they don't know. And I usually give instructions to my younger brother about how should he continue his studies and take preparation for his examination.

I know it's really annoying when you teach your mother to use a mobile phone or smart TV. And you have to do it again and again. But, every time I lose my patience, I'm remembered how she needed to teach me to use a spoon or a pencil. So I calm down a bit, take a deep breath and begin my lesson again.

May I ask a question? What's the difference between "briefing" and "meeting" in a workplace?

Hello Rafaela1

A 'briefing' is a specific kind of meeting -- it is a meeting in which people are given information they need to perform some kind of action. A 'meeting' is much more general -- it just refers to people coming together and speaking.

And though you didn't ask about it, there are also 'debriefings'! In most situations, at least in my experience, people use the word 'meeting' even when there may be some briefing or debriefing happening in the meeting.

All the best

Kirk

The LearnEnglish Team

I often give information and instruction at university in my representation.

When I was at university, we used to have a lot of projects and team work. It happened to me to be the team leader. Consequently, I had to share information and give instructions to the other members of the group.

Someone can to tell was meaning of (canteen), I couldn't understand it.