Chair a Meeting in English - Useful English Phrases for Meetings | eJOY English
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Hi, I'm Gina.
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Welcome to Oxford Online English!
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Tomorrow, you have an important meeting, and you're the chair.
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It's the first time you're chairing a meeting in English!
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Think about this situation.
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Would you know what to say to start the meeting, present your main ideas, or summarise your
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meeting agenda?
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In this lesson, you'll learn how to chair a meeting in English.
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You can learn useful English words and phrases which you can use in your next meeting.
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Now imagine: you're in the meeting room.
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You need to start the meeting.
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What will you say?
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Part one: welcoming attendees and starting the meeting.
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Before the meeting starts, you have to make sure that everyone is paying attention.
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Do you know how to do this?
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You could say:
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If I could have your attention, please.
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Could I have your attention, please?
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Good afternoon, everyone.
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You can also put two of these phrases together.
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For example:
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Good morning everyone, could I have your attention please?
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Remember, you're the chair.
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You need to take charge and lead the meeting.
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Make a strong start to your meeting by using emphasis in your voice.
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For example, in the first phrase, we have the word please after the pause at the end.
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Emphasise the word please to sound firmer and show people that you expect them to listen
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to you.
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Do it like this:
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If I could have your attention, please.
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You could also do this for the phrase:
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Could I have your attention, please.
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Listen to the phrase again.
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When I say it, does it sound like a question?
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Could I have your attention, please.
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The form is a question, but you can read it like a statement.
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This makes it sound firmer and shows people that you need them to pay attention to you
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now.
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After you have everyone's attention, it's time to welcome the attendees and get things
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started.
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Here are some good general phrases to use:
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I'd like to welcome you all here today, now let's get down to business.
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In this phrase, ‘get down to business' means ‘begin discussing the important information.'
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Thank you all for coming.
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Perhaps we can make a start.
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Thanks everyone and welcome to today's meeting.
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Let's begin.
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If this is your first time meeting these people, you could also introduce yourself.
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If there are other presenters in the meeting, this is also the time to introduce them.
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For example:
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I'd like to welcome you all here today, my name is Gina Mares and I'm the Marketing
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Manager, and this is Jon and he's the head of the design department.
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Now let's get down to business.
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Thank you all for coming.
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My name's Gina and I'm the Marketing Manager.
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I'm sure you all know Dasha, who's in charge of web content.
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Perhaps we can make a start.
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Thanks everyone and welcome to today's meeting.
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I'm Gina Mares, the Marketing Manager.
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This is Jess, from the accounts department, and she'll also be presenting today.
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Let's begin.
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Next, we have to introduce the topic and talk about the items on the agenda.
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Part two: introducing the topic and outlining the agenda.
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After you've welcomed everyone to the meeting, you want to make sure they have a clear idea
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of what you'll be discussing.
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This can also help you to stay organized throughout the meeting.
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First, you want to introduce the overall topic of the meeting.
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Then, introduce the agenda of the meeting: all the key points you will be discussing.
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Today's meeting is about ... We'll talk about ...
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The aim of this meeting is to ... We'll go over ...
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When you go over something, what do you think that means?
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It means to analyze or look at something carefully.
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You can also use cover.
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For example:
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In today's meeting, we'll go over ... Or: In today's meeting, we'll cover ...
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These are both useful when discussing an agenda.
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Now, it's your turn to practice beginning a meeting.
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Start with getting the attendees' attention, then welcome the attendees and get the meeting
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started.
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Finally, you can introduce the topic of the meeting and outline your agenda.
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I'll give you an example, and then you can create your own.
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Good morning everyone, if I could have your attention please.
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I'd like to welcome you all to the meeting today.
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Let's begin.
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The aim of this meeting is to talk about the marketing strategies for the next few months.
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We'll go over our budget, goals, and welcome the new hires.
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OK?
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Now, it's your turn.
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Create an introduction for a meeting you've recently had, or you can just use some general
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topics from your job.
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You can pause the video and think about it.
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How did you do?
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OK, now let's move on to the main part of the meeting.
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Part three: getting through the agenda.
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Now, you will get into the most important part of the meeting: presenting your main
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ideas.
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How you do this depends on what you are talking about, but there are some general rules that
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you can always use.
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You want to begin with the first item on your agenda.
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To do this, use phrases like:
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So, let's start with ... The first item on the agenda is ...
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After a phrase like this, you will present and discuss the agenda item.
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For example:
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So, let's start with some new business: marketing strategies.
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The first item on the agenda is how we can make our online advertising more effective.
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After you've discussed this first topic, you need to let the attendees know that you've
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finished and that the discussion should move forward.
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How can you do this?
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A simple closing statement will be good, such as:
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I think that covers the first, or second, or third item.
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If nobody has anything else to add, we can continue on to the next item.
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Now, you can move on to the next point.
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Here are some useful phrases for this:
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Let's move on to the next item: … Now we come to the…
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The final item on the agenda is…
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Using words like next or final can be very helpful.
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It helps everybody understand where you are and what you're doing.
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Let's see how to use these in some full sentences:
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Let's move onto the next item: the marketing budget for these new strategies.
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Now we come to the main challenge: how to get 100,000 new contacts in the next few months.
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The final item on the agenda is to welcome our new hires: James in Finance and Debra
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in HR.
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You can repeat these steps until you've covered all of the items on your agenda.
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Now it's your turn.
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Imagine you're chairing a meeting at your company.
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Write down three agenda items.
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Practice using different English phrases to introduce each item.
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Again, you can pause the video and think about the points we've just gone over, and also
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practice making your own examples.
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Next, we're going to look at attendee participation in the meeting.
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Part four: inviting attendees to participate.
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As chair, one of your responsibilities is making sure attendees get a chance to express
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their ideas and take part in discussions.
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What can you say to bring others into the discussion?
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You could ask a question like:
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..., what's your opinion on this?
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Would you like to share your thoughts on this question?
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Could you add anything to our ideas here?
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These are good phrases to make sure all attendees have a chance to participate.
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Also, as a chair, you may have other attendees who need to present ideas or lead the discussion
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for part of the meeting.
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When you want to hand over to another attendee, you can use phrases like:
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..., would you like to introduce this item?
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I'd like to turn it over to ... who is going to lead in the next point.
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Alright, now ... will have the floor.
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Just add the person's name to use these phrases.
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For example:
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Amit, would you like to introduce this item?
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However, there could be a problem here.
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What if some of the attendees talk too long, or start going off-topic?
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Part five: dealing with distractions and staying on topic
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Nobody likes meetings which go on too long, right?
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To be a good chair, you need to keep people focused on the agenda and avoid distractions.
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When someone is speaking for too long, there are good, professional phrases that you can
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use:
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Let's not get too far off-topic here.
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We can discuss that at the end if you feel it's important.
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I don't think that's relevant to today's discussion.
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If someone talks about a topic that would be good to discuss at a later time, you can
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use the phrase shelve it or table it.
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This means you want to talk about it, but in the future:
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I think we should shelve that until next time.
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Good point, but let's table it until the next meeting.
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At this point, you've got through your agenda, made sure that everyone has a chance to speak,
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and stayed on topic.
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Great!
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But, you have one more job:
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Part six: summarizing and concluding the meeting.
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Once you've finished discussing everything, you need to summarize your key points.
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This will provide a conclusion to your meeting and help people remember the most important
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points from the agenda.
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Here, you can say things like:
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Before we close, let me just summarize the main points.
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To sum up…
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In brief, ... Shall I go over the main points?
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Then, use verbs like discussed, went over, and talked about to list the items from the
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meeting.
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For example:
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To sum up, we discussed using the new internet marketing strategies and cutting the budget
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by $1,000 next month.
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We also talked about our new sales goals and increasing our traffic.
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Finally, we welcomed James and Debra to the company.
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Now, it's time to finish up.
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Here, you should show that you're finished and ask for any final questions.
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To finish, simple phrases like these are effective:
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OK, it looks like we've covered the main items for the meeting today.
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Right, that's all for today's meeting.
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Don't forget to ask if there are any final questions from the attendees.
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This will help them to clarify anything they didn't understand and make any final points.
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Is there any other business?
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Are there any questions before we finish?
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Now, I'd like you to practice concluding a meeting.
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First, I'll give you an example and then you can create your own:
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To sum up, we discussed using the new internet marketing strategies and cutting the budget
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by $1,000 each month.
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We also talked about our sales goals and increasing our site traffic.
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Finally, we welcomed James and Debra to the company.
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Right, that's all for today's meeting.
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Are there any questions before we finish?
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No?
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Great, I'd like to thank Bob, our CEO, for coming here all the way from Beijing.
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Thank you all for attending.
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That's all for today.
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OK, your turn.
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Summarize your meeting, thank everyone for coming, and conclude.
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Now you know how to chair a meeting from beginning to end.
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Are you chairing a meeting in English in the near future?
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I hope you can use some of the words and phrases from the lesson to make it easier for you!
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Each section has a lot of useful language to learn and practice, so you might want to
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go through some sections again to really get comfortable with the language you need.
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That's all for this lesson.
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Good luck, and thank you for watching!
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Please visit Oxford Online English dot com for more free lessons like this.
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See you next time!
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Chair a Meeting in English - Useful English Phrases for Meetings

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High Intermediate
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Business & Finance
In this lesson, you’ll learn how to chair a meeting in English. You can learn business English words and phrases which you can use in your next meeting. Cre: Oxford online English
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