• Has your company experienced undergone any major changes during your time there (e.g., new software, restructuring, new policies)?
  • Is change generally managed effectively there, or is it communicated poorly with inadequate training and a  "deal-with-it-yourself" or "just-make-it-work" attitude?
  • Did you feel frustrated or did the changes roll out smoothly? 
  • Did they improve efficiency or create chaos and more problems than solutions?
• Have you seen any of your colleagues resistant to change or your methods of working? What are their concerns? How could you reassure them?
• If members in your team introduced AI-driven systems and extra layers of automation in your workflow, would you resist this change?
  • Consister: quality and consistency, job security, efficiency and productivity, decision-making control, creativity.

Warm-up | Work Changes

Warm-up | Working Practices

Warm-up | Working Practices

accommodate        achieve        anticipate         facilitate        generate    

exchange          assess         measure

a _______ targets / objectives

b _______ needs / special requirements / requests

c _______ enthusiasm / ideas / interest

d _______ information / knowledge / points of view

e _______ success / progress / productivity

f _______ change / development / growth

g _______ performance / a situation

h _______ problems / potential difficulties / objections  

Warm-up | Working Practices

accommodate        achieve        anticipate         facilitate        generate    

exchange          assess         measure

a achieve targets / objectives

b accommodate needs / special requirements / requests

c generate enthusiasm / ideas / interest

d exchange information / knowledge / points of view

e measure success / progress / productivity

f facilitate change / development / growth

g assess performance / a situation

h anticipate problems / potential difficulties / objections  

Grammar | Speculating Future Changes

What are the tenses?

How certain is the speaker?

Grammar | Will vs Going to

Will

Going to

Advanced Grammar | Certainty

Modals with varying levels of certainty

• The recession in France might/could/will affect sales across Europe.
   

Will + adverbial

• The recession in France will perhaps / probably / likely impact pan-European sales.
• The French AI boom probably won't last beyond next year.
   

Adverbs with "be ... to" / "it's ... that ... will ..."

• The French elections are unlikely / expected / certain / bound to have a huge impact on trade.
• It's unlikely expected / probable / certain / bound to that the next French elections will have a huge impact on trade

Use adverbs for emphasis / distinction

• It's highly / quite / incredibly likely that all new workers will be laid off.

Advanced Grammar | Practise

What are your predictions for possible changes in your company or department? Consider:
 

• The business
• Budgets
• The competition
• Technologies
• Your working day
• Relationships with colleagues / your boss
• You / Your colleagues' role
• Other ideas.

(Use the target language)

Advanced Functional Language | Presentations

A large insurance company is creating a strategy for facing the future and one of its managers has been asked to attend a seminar on the future of working practices.

Advanced Functional Language | Presentations

A large insurance company is creating a strategy for facing the future and one of its managers has been asked to attend a seminar on the future of working practices.

Advanced Functional Language | Presentations

A large insurance company is creating a strategy for facing the future and one of its managers has been asked to attend a seminar on the future of working practices.

Advanced Functional Language | Presentations

A large insurance company is creating a strategy for facing the future and one of its managers has been asked to attend a seminar on the future of working practices.

Functional Language | Presentations

Outlining a structure

• I've divided my talk up into …

• First of all, I’ll … After that, I’ll …

• I’ll conclude with …

Beginning the presentation

• I’d like to start by saying …

Referring forwards / backwards / sideways

• I’ll return to … later.

• As I said earlier, …

• I’ll say more about … in a moment.

• Just to digress for a second, …

Signalling the next section

• OK, moving on …

• Turning to …

• This brings me to …

Ensuring understanding of a specialist subject

• Just to fill you in on some of the background, …

• By … I mean …

• Now I don’t know if you are familiar with …?

• Well, … refers to …

• This is where …

• And perhaps here I should explain what I mean by …

• That’s when …

• So, for example, …

Ending the presentation

• And this is my key point.

• To sum up, …

• I’ll be happy to take any questions now.

Prepare a quick presentation for changes you expect to see / would like to see in your company.

Sketch out the structure. Include:
 

• background info
• an outline of the presentation structure
• explanation of jargon
• reference to a later point
• reference to an earlier point
• links from one section to another
• a conclusion