This lesson focuses on two important aspects of managing a meeting: setting up the meeting with a series of emails, and keep the meeting under control. Two other important parts of managing a meeting, introducing the meeting and closing the meeting, are covered in lessons 1 and 5.

Since its development in the 1950s, brainstorming has become one of the most common techniques used in meetings to generate ideas. However, despite its clear benefits, the technique has its faults and many improvements have been suggested and analysed. This lesson aims to provide practice of brainstorming at the same time as exploring possible improvements. The second half of the lesson focuses on the necessary follow-up to brainstorming: evaluating ideas. This means the lesson covers two of the key language functions of meetings: making suggestions and agreeing/disagreeing.

While it is natural to focus on the challenge of starting conversations with strangers and keeping these conversations going, the real purpose of socialising is to turn these contacts into partners or even friends. Even a simple task like inviting a person out to a restaurant can cause embarrassment and stress. For this reason, this lesson includes discussions of why such situations are difficult, as well as plenty of practice.