Using English at Work：19 Attending the Morning Meeting(5)

Athletic¹ coaches give their teams "pep talks" before important games to help the players play better, to get more excited, more enthusiastic.

My manager's pep talk is probably meant to help us feel that the work we are doing is very important for the company.

Finally, I say, "Now it's back to our desks to do some work!"

This means that the meeting is over - thank goodness - and we need to leave the conference room and return to our own desks to do the work in our regular jobs.

Now let's listen to the description of the morning meeting again, this time at a normal speed.

I arrive at the conference room right before the meeting starts, and sit down in a chair around the large conference table.

Our manager passes out a handout² of the meeting agenda³ with some announcements and goes over some bullet points regarding old and new business.

Then, he asks each person to give a status report on his or her projects.

Each of us takes turns giving a quick rundown, while everyone else listens.

Of course not everyone is paying attention, since they're thinking about their own reports and what they plan to say.

Sometimes our manager will make some comments or give us some feedback, but usually there's very little discussion.

The meeting always ends the same way.

Our manager gives a short summary of how our department is doing and a little pep talk to get us motivated.

Now it's back to our desks to do some work!

That brings us to the end of our third lesson about attending a morning meeting.

In our next lesson, number four, I'm going to talk about working at my desk.

This course has been a production of the Center for Educational Development, in beautiful Los Angeles, California. Visit our website at eslpod.com.

1 athletic   

adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的

参考例句：

• This area has been marked off for athletic practice.这块地方被划出来供体育训练之用。
• He is an athletic star.他是一个运动明星。

2 handout   

n.散发的文字材料；救济品

参考例句：

• I read the handout carefully.我仔细看了这份分发的资料。
• His job was distributing handout at the street-corner.他的工作是在街头发传单。

3 agenda   

n.议事日程，记事册

参考例句：

• We now proceed to the next item on the agenda.我们现在着手讨论下一项议题。
• If there is no objection,the agenda is adopted.如果没有意见，议程就通过了。