HEAAADERLOGORIGHT

BUSINESS ENGLISH · ENGLISH IN VIDEO · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

MEETING
MISHAPS
QrrkoD Scan to review worksheet

Expemo code:
12NC-K5AD-6GQP

1 Warm up
Answer these questions about online, or virtual, meetings.

1. Have you had much experience of online meetings for work or study? Would you say these
experiences have been positive, negative or mixed? Why?
2. There are several ways that things can go wrong in online meetings. Match each type of problem
with an example:

Problems:
a fail = a bad idea
a mishap = an accident, when something goes wrong
a technical difficulty = problems with technology
a. your wi-fi goes down just as the meeting begins
b. wearing pyjamas to an important meeting
c. spilling your coffee on the keyboard

3. What other fails, mishaps and technical difficulties can you think of?

FOOOOTERRIGHT Learn without forgetting! 1/4

Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Menel Mel's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

MEETING MISHAPS

2 Watch for main idea

Video Watch this news report (3:43 mins) about problems with online meetings and then match the situations
with the problems. Decide if each pair is a fail, mishap or technical difficulty.

Situations Problems

1. in church: a. a cat sitting on someone’s lap

2. in court: b. a face on a potato

3. Lizet Ocampo’s meeting: c. alien eyes

4. Jessica Appelgren’s meeting: d. a Star Wars costume

5. Andre Hilden’s experience: e. the sound of a toilet flushing

Are any of these problems the same as the ones you talked about in the Warm-up? Which one do
you think is the funniest?

3 Vocabulary development

Read the sentences from the final part of the report (2:23 - end) and remember/predict the missing
words. The words you write will have the same or similar meaning as the words in brackets. The first
letter of the missing word has been given. Watch the report again to check.

1
Companies want m (very good or perfect) employees, too. ”He climbs
over, he has actually created a meeting for me last week that was several hours
long.” Andre Hilden, a data architecture consultant in Oakland, California, missed a
2
m (important message) from his company outlining videoconferencing e
3
(polite behaviour) ”I did not read that one.”
4
After his cat, Tasha, c (attended without an invitation) one of the early
virtual business meetings, Hilden’s employer made an example out of him. ”I had my cat
on my lap, actually. I was not thinking it would be a problem. And it ended up being, coming
5
across as u (not behaving correctly in a work situation). And
team members of mine saw me in the same meeting and did not like that and pointed
6
it out, and made it the topic in the next internal g (meeting -
informal) in an effort to make sure that this doesn’t happen anymore.”

... And even as businesses begin to reopen, many employees are still working from
7
home and will for the f (the period of time we can make a
prediction about) future. ”Remote work is going to be a growing trend.” Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey of Twitter and Square announced that employees at
8
their companies will be allowed to work from home i (a period
of time with no specific end).

FOOOOTERLEFT Learn without forgetting! 2/4

Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Menel Mel's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

MEETING MISHAPS

Read this part of the report again and explain what the three underlined phrasal verbs mean, using
the context to help:
I had my cat on my lap. ... And it ended up being, coming across as unprofessional. And team members
of mine saw me in the same meeting and did not like that and pointed it out ....
• end up =
• come across as =
• point it out =

4 Checking understanding

Decide if the information in these sentences are true or false.

1. Andre Hilden ignored a warning from his company about their policies for online meetings.
2. Andre’s colleagues were annoyed about the cat sitting on his lap.
3. Andre’s company gave information about appropriate behaviour in meetings in three different
ways.
4. Andre probably feels a bit embarrassed now.
5. Major companies are keen to continue with online working practices for now.

5 Vocabulary practice

Complete at least five of these sentences in a logical way.

1. From my point of view, a model partner (boyfriend/girlfriend) has to ...

2. The last memo I received was about ...
3. One rule of good online meeting etiquette is ...
4. If people crash a party, the host should ...
5. It’s definitely unprofessional when ...
6. In the foreseeable future, I think I’m going to ...
7. No one wants to end up ............
8. At work, I hope I come across as ...

FOOOOTERRIGHT Learn without forgetting! 3/4

Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Menel Mel's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

MEETING MISHAPS

6 Discussion

Answer these questions in pairs or small groups.

1. Do you think that having a pet on your lap during an online meeting is very unprofessional?
2. What can parents who are working at home do to avoid fails and prevent mishaps? Think of at
least three steps they can take.
3. Why do you think employers are so positive about continuing online working? How will they
monitor and take care of their workers?
4. How do workers feel about continuing to work at home?
5. How do you think working arrangements will change in the next few years? What about in the
next twenty years?

FOOOOTERLEFT Learn without forgetting! 4/4

Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Menel Mel's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
TEACHER MATERIALS · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

MEETING MISHAPS

Transcripts

2. Watch for main idea

Cats, kids and ’Potato boss’: Work-from-home fails and faux pas

Scene-stealing cats, kids with energy to burn, and let’s call them technical difficulties. They’ve
all been part of the work-from-home experience, and clumsiness with the practice has struck
everything from online church sermons to oral arguments by teleconference before the U.S. Supreme
Court.

Roman Martinez: ”And what the FCC has said is that when [TOILET FLUSHING] the subject matter of
the call ranges to such topics then the call is transformed.” Work-from-home mishaps have seemed
to spare no industry or profession.

”Um...I am now internationally famous for not knowing how to use technology.” Lizet Ocampo is a
political director at a non-profit advocacy group in Washington D.C. But Ocampo is better known
on the internet as ”Potato Boss” after her employee snapped a photo of her as the root vegetable
because of an unwieldy Snapchat filter.

”I was turning on Microsoft Teams to have a video meeting with our team at People for the American
Way. So we turn on the cameras and there I was as a potato. And, at first, we didn’t know what it
was but then we noticed the soil and the grass. We were like ’okay, this is a potato.’ I kept on trying
to fix it. It wouldn’t work. So I just kind of sat there as a potato for the meeting.”

”I think, right now, it’s very clear like who ’gets’ Snapchat...” Jessica Appelgren is an executive at
Impossible Foods in San Francisco. She’s experienced similar issues with Zoom’s videoconferencing
app. ”’Alien eyes! Alien eyes!’ I mean, the comments were just flowing in the chat field just like,
’What’s wrong with Jessica’s face?!”

But it’s not just contending with new technology. [DOG BARKS] ”That’s been a real problem.”
Applegren says there have been far greater challenges. ”In a given day, I will tell you, it is in this
order: it’s the dog and then it’s the kids and then it’s my neighbour who comes over to walk the dog.
So that’s great... Parents have a very different situation on their hands with trying to keep the kids
busy and work at the same time. And I think we were worried about how to model for our kids well
in this time.”

Companies want model employees, too. ”He climbs over, he has actually created a meeting for me
last week that was several hours long.” Andre Hilden, a data architecture consultant in Oakland,
California, missed a memo from his company outlining videoconferencing etiquette. ”I did not read
that one.”

After his cat, Tasha, crashed one of the early virtual business meetings, Hilden’s employer made an
example out of him. ”I had my cat on my lap, actually. I was not thinking it would be a problem. And
it ended up being, coming across as unprofessional. And team members of mine saw me in the same
meeting and did not like that and pointed it out, and made it the topic in the next internal gathering
in an effort to make sure that this doesn’t happen anymore.”

FOOOOTERAPPENDIXRIGHT
Learn without forgetting! i
Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Menel Mel's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
TEACHER MATERIALS · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

MEETING MISHAPS

Despite its disadvantages, working from home could very well become the rule. Videoconferencing
company Zoom said it had about 300 million daily meeting participants in April. Granted, some of
those may have been cats.

And even as businesses begin to reopen, many employees are still working from home and will for the
foreseeable future. ”Remote work is going to be a growing trend.” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
and Jack Dorsey of Twitter and Square announced that employees at their companies will be allowed
to work from home indefinitely.

FOOOOTERAPPENDIXLEFT
Learn without forgetting! ii
Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Menel Mel's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
TEACHER MATERIALS · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

MEETING MISHAPS

Key

1. Warm up

10 mins. In this stage, the topic of the lesson (online meetings for work, using something like Zoom or Microsoft
teams) is introduced and personalised. Students can discuss the first question in pairs or small groups - after a few
minutes, elicit from the class whether their experiences have been mainly positive or negative and why. Then go
over question 2 with the whole class, making sure students understand the difference between the three types of
problems, and matching with examples. Drill pronunciation of the three types of problems - the stressed syllable
is underlined. Finally, students can think of more examples of each type - they could do this in pairs or small
groups and then you can elicit some answers from the class. Tell students they are going to watch a report about
problems with online meetings and that they may see some of the problems they predicted.
Answers: 2. fail = B wearing pyjamas to an important meeting; mishap = C spilling your coffee on the keyboard;
technical difficulty = A your wi-fi goes down just as the meeting begins.

2. Watch for main idea

10 mins. In this stage, students watch a news report all the way through (3:43 mins) and demonstrate an understanding
of the main points by matching situations and problems and identifying the type of problem. They also reflect on
the predictions they made in the Warm-up.
Go over the instructions with the whole class and elicit/explain the meaning of ”court” (a place where legal cases
happen) and ”alien” (a living being from another planet). Then play the video - encourage students to watch and
enjoy rather than trying to write at the same time; they will be able to remember the answers, especially as the
situations are listed in the exercise in the same order as they appear in the report. They can work in pairs and
then check answers with the class - there may be differences of opinion about the type of problem for the last
situation. Work with the whole class to compare these situations to their predictions from the Warm-up. There
will be an opportunity to discuss the content in more detail in the final stage of the lesson, but at this point you
could ask students which one they thought was the funniest.
1. d 2. e 3. b 4. c 5. a

Fails: in church, Andre Hilden’s experience (it’s a bad idea to have your cat sitting on your lap)
Mishaps: in court, Andre Hilden’s experience (the cat accidentally created a meeting by sitting/walking on the
keyboard
Technical difficulties: Lizet Ocampo’s meeting, Jessica Appelgren’s meeting

3. Vocabulary development

10 mins. In this stage, students watch the final part of the report (2:23 - end) and notice and record some lexical
items which will help them to fully understand the content. These items will be an appropriate addition to the
active business vocabulary of students at this level.
Go over the instructions and perhaps demonstrate the exercise (without confirming or denying the answer).
Remind students that it can be helpful to think about parts of speech and context for the missing word, e.g. the
first item is an adjective which refers to employees. Then allow students a minute or so in pairs to look through
the exercise so they can remember or predict the missing words, using all the clues to help. If they don’t know an
item, they should just move on to the next one.

FOOOOTERAPPENDIXRIGHT
Learn without forgetting! iii
Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Menel Mel's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
TEACHER MATERIALS · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

MEETING MISHAPS

Students then listen to the report a second time before checking answers in pairs. Often students at this level can
hear some/all the phonemes of the word but need support in converting these to plausible spellings. After you
check answers with the class, they may want to listen one final time to focus on the relationship between sound
and spelling. You might want to drill any words, phrases or sentences that were problematic for students.
1. model
2. memo
3. etiquette (note - this word can be a ”false friend” to French speakers)
4. crashed
5. unprofessional
6. gathering
7. foreseeable
8. indefinitely

For the phrasal verbs, you could do this with the whole class, eliciting ideas about meaning from the group.
Guessing meaning from context is a key skill for language learners. You should also help students to notice that
”end up” is intransitive, ”come across as” is a three-part phrasal verb, and ”point something out (to someone)” is a
separable phrasal verb.
PHRASAL VERBS: end up = finally be in a situation, without planning for it; come across as = behave so that you
make a particular impression on someone; point something out = make someone aware of important information.

4. Checking understanding

Time: 5 mins. Students use the same final part of the report to recover detailed meaning. They can work in pairs
and should be prepared to justify their answer with information from the text.
1. F ”I didn’t read that one”
2. T ”...team members ... saw me in the meeting and didn’t like it...”
3. F - the company only gave this information in two ways - in a memo and then at a meeting
4. T - this seems likely because his employer ”made an example out of him” and his behaviour was described as
”unprofessional”
5. T - Facebook and Twitter bosses are continuing home-working for now and predict it will be a ”growing trend”

5. Vocabulary practice

10 mins. In this stage, students can activate a few of the items from the previous stage, in a personal context.
Students work alone to complete the sentences - they can choose which ones to complete. Early finishers can
complete all eight items. Monitor and make sure that what students write is logical and grammatical. Then students
can share their sentences in pairs or small groups, or you can highlight some effective or interesting examples from
the class on the board. Students could continue this exercise on their own as homework, using other items from
the previous stage.
ANSWERS: students’ own.

6. Discussion

15 mins. This stage offers students an opportunity to respond to some of the issues raised in the report. Students
can work in pairs or small groups to discuss the questions. Encourage them to answer in full sentences, giving
reasons and examples for their ideas, and to explore alternative points of view. Monitor and make a note of
student use of language - positive and negative points - for feedback at the end of the session. Round up ideas at
the end of the session.

FOOOOTERAPPENDIXLEFT
Learn without forgetting! iv
Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Menel Mel's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
TEACHER MATERIALS · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

MEETING MISHAPS

ANSWERS: students’ own, but for question 3, it is possible that employers will save a lot of money if they don’t
have to pay for expensive office space in the future, although they may need to provide workers with equipment
(like laptops or office furniture) and restructure some of their procedures for meetings.

FOOOOTERAPPENDIXRIGHT v
Learn without forgetting!
Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Menel Mel's lessons.