Cross-Cultural Phone Etiquette
Aims
Goal: adapt the same business call to two very different cultures — formal and indirect, direct and efficient — and hear the difference in your own voice.
The lesson, stage by stage
- Warm up5 min
Warm-up: Let's Chat About Cultural Differences on Calls
2 warm-up questions
- Reading10 min
Reading: The judge you can't see
Read a 164-word text about The judge you can't see
- Vocabulary8 min
Vocabulary: Cross-Cultural Vocabulary
7 items
- Reading10 min
Reading: Navigating Cultural Differences on Calls
Read a 280-word text about Navigating Cultural Differences on Calls
- Reading10 min
Reading: One call, two cultures
Read a 277-word text about One call, two cultures
- Practice7 min
Practice: Match Cultural Situations
Matching exercise, 6 items
- Practice7 min
Practice: Fix the Cross-Cultural Mistakes
Error-correction exercise, 5 items
- Dialogue10 min
Dialogue: An International Business Call
Role-play: You're calling a new business contact in Japan, Suzuki-san, to discuss a potential partnership. This is your first phone conversation with her. (11 lines)
- Discussion10 min
Discussion: Your mission: same call, two styles
3 discussion questions
Open the full lesson
The remaining 8 stages of this lesson, with the procedure, the examples and the exercises, are included with Starter, along with the interactive version you can teach from. Lesson 1 of this course is free: the full plan is on this site, and a free account opens it in the interactive player.
Target vocabulary
In a Tuton account these words become your student's vocabulary deck, so they come back in practice between lessons.
This plan comes from the Phone & Video Calls course in the Tuton library. Browse all free lesson plans.