Delivering Bad News

B2 · Upper-intermediate1 hr 7 minStartup EnglishLesson 4 of 8 · Outline

Aims

Goal: deliver any setback in four moves — facts first, honest cause, a concrete response plan, realistic confidence — so bad news builds trust instead of spending it.

The lesson, stage by stage

  1. Warm up5 min

    Warm-up: Bad news, delivered well

    2 warm-up questions

  1. Reading10 min

    Reading: Delivering Bad News

    Read a 257-word text about Delivering Bad News

  2. Vocabulary8 min

    Vocabulary: Delivering Bad News Vocabulary

    8 items

  3. Reading10 min

    Reading: The hardest conversation, handled whole

    Read a 290-word text about The hardest conversation, handled whole

  4. Practice7 min

    Practice: Practice: Bad News Communication

    Word-ordering exercise, 5 items

  5. Practice7 min

    Practice: Transparent or spin?

    Matching exercise, 6 items

  6. Dialogue10 min

    Dialogue: Role Play: Breaking Bad News

    Role-play: You need to tell your lead investor about a major setback: your CTO and co-founder is leaving the company. You're having the conversation in person. (4 lines)

  7. Discussion10 min

    Discussion: Your setback, delivered live

    3 discussion questions

Open the full lesson

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Target vocabulary

In a Tuton account these words become your student's vocabulary deck, so they come back in practice between lessons.

setbackstransparencyburysugar-coatdirectnessmaking excusesvendor consolidationconcentration risk

This plan comes from the Investor Updates course in the Tuton library. Browse all free lesson plans.