When faced with a difficult question, especially in a stressful situation like a job interview or a product presentation, some learners of English tend to fall silent and fail to let the other person know that they’re thinking.This might be especially problematic if the conversation takes place over the phone or Skype, i.e. when the person they’re talking to can’t see them and doesn’t know how to interpret their silence. Here’s a short lesson that I designed to help my learners deal with this problem.
Lesson Overview
Level: B1 – B2
Learner type: Business English or General English/Teens.
Time: 30-45 minutes
Target expressions:
Materials: a Microsoft Word worksheet (you can download a .pdf file from Slideshare below):
Olya Sergeeva's ELT blog 
A critical need that you’ve turned into a pithy lesson! Bravo! I can’t wait to try this one out.
Hey Adi!
Did you happen to try it? If you’ve got any suggestions about how to improve or adapt this material, I’d love to find out.
a wonderful lesson plan. Thank you
Thank you Russie!
This looks awesome, and I know just the person to try it with!
Thank you!
Thank you, Olya! I’m definitely about to use it with my ss 🙂
Hi Anna,
Thanks! Did you try it? How did it go?
To tell the truth, I’m on my way to do it, especially with my Upper-Intermediate students.