Exercise 19.

1. Make the class:

a) You are John Wall. You want to cancel your appointment at 3 p.m. tomorrow with Roberta Hunt, the customer services manager. Ask her if 4 p.m. next Tuesday is possible.

b) You manage the cosmetics department at B&A department store. You have two new sales assistants who need some training. Telephone the customer services manager at Benito to ask for her help.

Receive calls a) and b)

You work in the customer services department of Benito Cosmetics. Your manager, Roberta Hunt, is out of the office today. Take any messages for her.

2. Make the class:

a) Your company, Ellis & Co., did some building work for Mackeson Property U.K. four months ago. You are still waiting for payment. Call their chief accountant.

b) You are Anna Ferndale from the head office of Mackeson Property U.K. You want the sales figures for the last January. Call Mr. Side in the accountant department.

Receive calls a) and b)

You work for Mackeson Property U.K. in the Account Department. The chief accountant Mr. Side, is on holiday for a week. Take any messages for him.

Exercise 20. Read the following piece of information and discuss advantages and disadvantages of an answer phone (of a mobile phone).

Ten or a bit more years ago people had one telephone in the house and one in the office. Today, people have telephones everywhere: in the house, in the car, in the garden. You even see people walking round the streets with cordless telephones. One man, when recently asked what his telephone number was, answered:

“Which number do you want? My home number, my work number, my weekend number, or my car number?”

Another new thing is answerphone. Nobody likes answerphones. For callers there is the problem of how to speak to it. It is very difficult to have a conversation with a machine. Owners of answerphones have problems too. What sort of message do they record? Some are too short, so the caller doesn’t have time to think, for example: “This is a message. Speak now.”

Others are too long. A New Yorker put a message on his machine which said: “This is Nathan’s answerphone. Please leave your name, number, address, height, weight, qualifications, identity card number and mother’s first name. Speak now!” Not surprisingly, people soon stopped telephoning Nathan.