| LESSON OVERVIEW
Here we come with a Business English lesson plan that focuses on teaching negotiation phrases and lets you have 1-to-1 negotiation role-plays in your classroom! With this worksheet, your students will:
- discover new Business English idioms and practise using them
- talk about how to ask for a salary increase and listen to tips from an expert
- learn a variety of business negotiation phrases
- role play two scenarios to practise negotiating in real-life situations
BUSINESS ENGLISH IDIOMS
The lesson starts with a vocabulary activity in which students need to discover the meaning of 5 Business English idioms. They have sample sentences where such idioms are used and definitions to match. Give students around 5-7 minutes to do this task and let them compare their answers. What follows is a short speaking task, where students need to say what they would do in particular scenarios and use one of the newly learned idioms.
VIDEO AND DISCUSSION (ASKING FOR A RAISE)
Before you watch the video with your students, there is a pre-watching task. There are 4 questions that students need to answer in pairs. While the first one refers to their personal experience, others are more general and, in fact, will be answered in the video. Give your students a few minutes to discuss these questions and encourage them to note down what they think.
Next, watch the Business Insider interview with Barbara Corcoran where she explains how you should ask for a raise. She speaks rather fast in this interview which might be a challenge for some students. We recommend watching the video once and gauging how difficult it’s been for the students to follow or checking which information they’ve managed to get. Then, let your students watch it the second time (you may play it with subtitles). Afterwards, they should compare their ideas with what Barbara Corcoran said and discuss how useful and realistic her advice is.
NEGOTIATION PHRASES AND ROLEPLAYS
The next page consists of groups of common phrases that can be used during negotiation. Students need to go through those phrases and choose the right label for each group. This way they get to know different expressions and when to use them. Give them 5-7 minutes to do this task and help them understand any problematic phrases.
And now comes the most fun and engaging part of the lesson, i.e. the role-play. We prepared for your 2 unique scenarios so that each student can take one of the two roles in the negotiation process. Obviously, one is about asking for a raise 
while the other is a classic buyer-supplier contract negotiation. In both cases, students will have plenty of opportunities to use negotiation phrases from page 2 in practice.
WORKSHEETS
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This is the best ESLBrains lesson I have used! Business students for some reason are very engaged with this topic
The role plays are great too – more of these would be fantastic.
Thanks!
Hi,
Excellent lesson!
I think there is a typo in #3 ,discussion questions: it says: asking for a RISE but it should be Raise .
Thanks,
Viktoriya
Thanks!
In British English, “a (pay) rise” is OK!
Justa, isn’t it the case that in BrE “rise” is used in the collocation “pay rise”, but with this meaning it is not typically separated, ie you do not use “rise” in the same way as “raise”? I’m confused to be honest. Don’t think I’ve ever seen it used separately, and in my opinion, using “rise” without ‘pay’ even in Britich English leads to confusion.
Hi Betty! Both options are correct in BrE: just ‘rise’ and ‘pay rise’, you can see it also in the dictionaries, e.g. here. We also use it interchangeably in the worksheet as we have a lot of context in the lesson. Hope that helps!
“You’re a single parent who wants to get back to work after a parental leave [a win-win situation] – what is the possible scenario here? Cannot think of one.
Challenge accepted!
Let me try:
“I could work from home just for a few hours a day at the beginning. This way I can take care of my child and start getting back to my career life. It’s a win-win situation for me and my employer:”
It also says “rise” on slide 12: “How would you ask for a rise?” Also BE?
Thank you!
Yes, it’s British English. In this worksheet, we wanted to show students that both options (raise and rise) are correct.
This is such an interesting topic. Thanks for this great lesson! It’s really engaging.
Thanks for the feedback
amasing lesson!