Work Tasks & Responsibilities: English Vocabulary 2.3

Katie hands Keith a list of things people do at work and asks him which ones he actually does. He gets as far as admin and gives up defending himself: "I don't like doing it I'm very lazy and I usually don't do it properly". A moment later he describes meetings where there are too many people and "no decisions are made". That's the tone of this episode — real people talking about the daily grind of their jobs, and the fixed phrases English uses to describe it.

What you'll hear in this episode

Katie talks to Isla, Keith, Annie, Piotr and Beth about the tasks and responsibilities that fill their working days. The first half is unprompted description: answering the phone for clients, taking messages, going out to meetings with a laptop, doing admin at home. One speaker who used to work as a probation officer remembers that the secretaries did the photocopying and filtered the phone calls — "that was a kind of nicer aspect of the job" — but that the admin was something "none of us particularly, liked that much".

The second half is question and answer. Katie asks about presentations, conferences, deadlines, customers, problems, reports and instructions. Piotr says he has given "tonnes of presentations" and hates them, describing exactly what happens to your body: "you do get butterflies in your stomach", your legs shake, your mouth goes dry. He's warmer about conferences, where a room full of people with the same interest means "something nice is bound to happen". On deadlines, one speaker admits to being "the procrastinating type" and notes that "tight deadlines" is one of those phrases that turns up in job adverts.

Keith is the driest voice here. On deadlines: "I don't always meet my deadlines, but I always have a good excuse". On instructions: "I like giving instructions more than I like taking instructions". Beth explains that the hard part of serving customers is that sometimes you overhear things you disagree with "but you have to keep your mouth shut".

Quick facts

Episode	2.3
Pack	Vocabulary for Work
Level	2
Duration	22 minutes 25 seconds
Voices	Katie with five speakers
Workbook	Included in the €39 all-in-one pack

What you'll learn

This unit is really about collocation — which verb goes with which noun. You do photocopying, answer the phone, take a message, go to meetings, make a decision, give a presentation, meet a deadline, serve customers, solve problems, write reports and either give or follow instructions. Get the verb wrong and the phrase sounds foreign even when the vocabulary is right, so the unit starts by showing you the nouns with the verbs missing and asking you to guess before you hear anyone speak.

The pronunciation work is narrow and useful. In do admin, for example, the audio points out that the w sound at the end of do joins the a sound in admin, which is why the phrase sounds like one word at speed rather than two.

You'll also get practice with the past habits people use when describing old jobs — used to be, used to do, didn't use to — and with idiom in the middle of ordinary speech: presenting material that was "not really my cup of tea", giving instructions as "bread and butter" work, or not spending all your time "jet-setting between one conference and another". These aren't taught as a list; you hear them in the flow of someone thinking aloud, which is where you'll meet them in real life.

In the workbook

The Unit 3 workbook follows the audio step by step. It opens with the gap-fill list of fourteen task phrases, so you can attempt the missing verbs on paper before checking them. Then come the two Vocabulary and Listening sections with the full transcripts of what Isla, Keith, Annie, Piotr and Beth actually said — hesitations, false starts and all — which is the fastest way to find the phrase you couldn't quite catch.

The two Vocabulary and Pronunciation sections are laid out with the definition prompt, the target phrase and an example sentence to repeat after the beep, from "Can you photocopy these for me?" to "Please follow my instructions carefully."

The Extra Materials add two written exercises with answers: crossing out the verb that doesn't collocate (make / take / do a decision), and a set of true-or-false statements that test whether you've understood the concepts as well as the words — Your boss is your client, for instance, or Doing photocopying could be part of doing admin.

This workbook comes with the all-in-one pack, along with the workbooks for every other episode.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Common questions

Is the audio scripted?

The conversations are unscripted — the speakers are answering Katie's questions on the spot, which is why you'll hear repetition and self-correction. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

Do I need the workbook to use this episode?

No. The audio works alone, and it's free. The workbook is for people who want the transcripts, the phrase lists and the written collocation exercises to check their answers against.

Which English phrases does this unit cover?

Fourteen task and responsibility phrases, including do photocopying, answer the phone, take a message, do admin, go to meetings, make a decision, give a presentation, go to a conference, meet a deadline, serve customers, solve problems, write reports and give or follow instructions.

Is this useful outside work talk?

Yes. The same phrases come up when you introduce yourself, explain what you do, or describe your skills at a job interview.

What's in the €39 pack?

Every Zapp! English workbook, this one included, matched to the free English conversations.

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