Workplace English Materials Don't Teach Stand-ups: Nineteen Sentences for Asking for Help, Checking Understanding, Disagreeing Politely, and Owning Mistakes

🌏 中文版

The ten sentences in my previous work English post started from the Chinese, and I then checked a dictionary for the pattern. The topic was reporting progress in a stand-up. This time I changed the method: I read workplace English teaching materials first to see what they teach, then compared.

The result surprised me a little. The materials teach almost none of what I had been practicing.

What I was trying to say

The sources I read this time:

• BBC Office English: the full transcripts of twenty-one of the series' thirty-seven episodes
• Four speaking lessons from British Council LearnEnglish: asking a favour, agreeing and disagreeing, challenging someone's ideas, and dealing with a problem
• PagerDuty's public incident response documentation, six pages

Here are the functions the materials teach, next to my original twelve work cards:

The five stand-up sentences (looking into an issue, fixed it yesterday, still waiting, blocked, can't reproduce it) are not wrong. The materials I read this time just don't back them up, and their support is still dictionaries and technical documentation. The materials spend their time on something else: the things that are hard to say to another person.

What you can say in this situation

Each sentence is marked as quoted from a source or as a source sentence with the content swapped. Both speaking sources are British institutions. The BBC hosts say several times that this kind of indirect phrasing is a British workplace habit, and that when you are making a decision or handing out work, being more direct is clearer.

1. Asking for help and saying no

The first four come from the BBC episode Help. The host calls the first one informal and the third one more formal, suitable for a manager. He explains another pair of eyes as could you have a look for me?. The British Council lesson on asking a favour also opens with Have you got a minute?, and to say no it uses I would if I could, but I can't.

The last two come from the BBC episode Saying no. The last sentence says yes first and then names the cost, so the other person decides the priority.

2. Checking understanding

The first two come from the BBC episode Misunderstandings. The same episode has can you walk me through how you usually do this?, which the host says is especially useful for someone new. My Could you walk me through how this part works? from the previous post differs only in the opening and the object. Of the twelve old cards, it is the only one that nearly matches a sentence in the materials.

The third comes from Clear communication. The Oxford dictionary lists on the same page as an idiom (page).

3. Disagreeing politely

This group is where the two sources overlap most:

• Saying "not sure" instead of "I disagree": the BBC episode Conflict has Hmm, I'm not sure about that, I think.... The British Council lesson on agreeing and disagreeing has I'm not so sure and I'm not convinced by that idea.
• Acknowledging first, then turning: the British Council has I see what you mean, but it looks a bit empty, I take your point, but…, and I see where you're coming from. The BBC has that's a good point, … but in this instance, I think we should….

The last two come from the British Council lesson on challenging someone's ideas. That lesson also has Have you considered the fact that…?, which is a little sarcastic in the original dialogue, so the tone is yours to judge when you use it.

4. Admitting mistakes, warning about bad news, chasing progress and deadlines

The original sentence in the BBC episode Mistakes is I've accidentally sent the email out early, but I have a plan to fix the problem. The point is to admit the mistake and bring the fix with it. In the British Council lesson on dealing with a problem, the openers are I've got a bit of a problem and I've made a mistake.

That's on me and I need to give you a heads up come from the BBC episode Apologies. The Oxford dictionary labels heads-up as especially North American English (heads-up), but the BBC in the UK teaches it too, so you can hear it in both places.

The sentence for chasing progress comes from Chasing people, where the original context is writing an email. The host says this indirect question for a first reminder is a British habit, and probably an American one too. The deadline question, How firm is our deadline on this?, comes from the Saying no episode, and Deadlines and logistics also has do we have a hard deadline on this?.

5. Incident calls

This one comes from PagerDuty's Incident Commander training. It is a dialogue the document uses as an example: the commander assigns a task with a time limit, and the person assigned replies this way. The same document asks participants to say they don't know when they are unsure, rather than guess. It also says that when the commander asks for input, the question is Are there any strong objections to this plan? and not Does everyone agree?.

Can I also say it this way?

Say it again with different content

Read the Chinese, say it yourself, then check the reference.

1. 我這邊遇到一點問題。
   • I'm having some trouble with this.
2. 你的意思是我們應該先回滾嗎？
   • Do you mean we should roll it back first?
3. 我講得清楚嗎？
   • Does that make sense?
4. 我不小心刪錯檔案了，不過我已經有修正的計畫。
   • I've accidentally deleted the wrong file, but I have a plan to fix the problem.
5. 你有空看過那份文件了嗎？
   • Have you had a chance to look at the doc?
6. 了解，我十分鐘後回報進度。
   • Understood, I'll get back with an update in 10 minutes.

Sentences 2 and 3 are also phrases the BBC teaches. The rest are source sentences with the content swapped.

A short dialogue

This is a practice example I wrote, not a dialogue from the materials.

A: Have you got a second to help me out? I'm having some trouble with this.

B: Sure. What's the problem?

A: I've accidentally deployed the wrong branch, but I have a plan to fix the problem. I think we should roll it back first.

B: Hmm, I'm not sure about that. Why don't we check the logs first?

A: I see what you mean, but users are already affected.

B: OK. Are we on the same page? You roll back, and I tell the team.

A: Yes. I'll get back with an update in 20 minutes.

Without looking at the English, how would you say it?

Rate yourself on whether you got the meaning across, not on matching the words exactly.

Still to verify

• How to report progress in a stand-up: none of the materials I read this time teach it. It needs another kind of source, such as public meeting notes from engineering teams.
• Whether Have you got…? and snowed under lean British: both speaking sources are British institutions and do not say. I did not find a dictionary label either.
• Whether the collocations still sound natural after I swapped technical terms (staging, PR, branch) into the source sentences: I did not check separately.
• American workplace speaking materials: I sampled none this time.
• Thirteen episodes of BBC Office English are still unread.

Overall

The biggest difference between this batch and the previous post is that I found what I had been practicing barely overlaps with what the materials teach. I assumed the hard part of work English was explaining a technical situation clearly. The materials put the hard part between people: how to ask for help, how to say no, how to disagree without souring things, how to admit a mistake. Both are needed, but I had never practiced the second kind at all.

Fifteen of the nineteen sentences are quoted from the sources. The ones worth practicing first are the three for checking understanding and the three for admitting mistakes, because leaving those unsaid costs the most. The limit is that both speaking sources come from British institutions, so this level of indirectness may not fit elsewhere. There was also no native-speaker testing and no frequency comparison.

References

• BBC Office English: Help: asking for help, offering help, helping later
• BBC Office English: Saying no: being snowed under, pushing back a deadline, how firm a deadline is
• BBC Office English: Misunderstandings: checking understanding, asking someone to explain again
• BBC Office English: Clear communication: on the same page
• BBC Office English: Conflict: I'm not sure about that
• BBC Office English: Mistakes: admitting a mistake together with a plan to fix it
• BBC Office English: Apologies: That's on me, heads up
• BBC Office English: Chasing people: chasing progress
• BBC Office English: Deadlines and logistics: hard deadline
• British Council LearnEnglish: Asking a favour: asking for help and saying no
• British Council LearnEnglish: Agreeing and disagreeing: disagreeing politely
• British Council LearnEnglish: Challenging someone's ideas: follow-up questions and suggesting a trial
• British Council LearnEnglish: Dealing with a problem: opening a conversation about a problem you caused
• PagerDuty Incident Response: Incident Commander training: the example dialogue for incident calls
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: heads-up: regional label
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: page: on the same page