Phone calls without the panic
Booking, confirming and asking someone to repeat themselves.
A phone call takes away everything you rely on. No face, no gestures, nothing to read, and no time to think. For a learner it is the most stressful thing English asks of them, and this episode is built around making it smaller.
It works through three calls from beginning to end: making a booking, confirming an appointment, and sorting out something that has gone wrong. Each one has a fixed shape, and knowing the shape is most of the battle — you can predict roughly what the other person will say before they say it.
The most valuable minute is the one on asking somebody to repeat themselves. There are several ways to do it, they are all completely normal, and none of them makes you sound as though you cannot speak English. Learners apologise far more than they need to.
Practised at a slow speed and then at the speed a receptionist actually talks, which is the speed you will meet.
