Business English- Present Perfect and Simple Past- Meetings Roleplays

Present Perfect and Past Simple meetings roleplays

Choose one of the topics below and chair a meeting on that topic, starting from greetings and small talk and finishing with summarising the agreement, chatting at the end, etc. Then switch topics and do the same, again starting from greetings and small talk. Be careful to use the right grammar to talk about the part in the gap below, but don’t write anything in the gaps yet, just mention them orally when it is time to get down to business and introduce the topic. 

• The company ______________________ (not upgrade) the computers since 2008.
• The company _______________(relocate) last year but no one likes the new office.
• There ______________________(be) a boom in office rents in the last six months.
• The government ____________________________________________(deregulate) the insurance industry in the middle of last year and your company is the only one which hasn’t reformed its business because of that yet.
• The company ______________________________________________ (downsize) the workforce six months ago and now there aren’t enough staff to do all the work.
• Sales of the new product _______________________________________________ (make great strides = improve) in the last two months, but it is still losing money.
• The company updated its software on Monday, but it _________________________ (crash) seven times since then.
• The sales staff were retrained in November. Since then half of the staff ____________________________ (leave) to get better jobs with other companies.
• The director _________________________ (restructure) the department in a very unpopular way at the end of last year, then he left the company two weeks later.
• A product was re-launched at the beginning of this month but its sales ___________________________________________ (be) even worse since then.
• Your company ________________________________________________________ (redevelop) land that it owns just five years ago, but since then all the surrounding land has been filled with much more modern developments.
• The CEO _________________________________________________________ (decide) at the end of last year to slowly decentralise power to local branches but a new CEO has joined this month and wants to bring power back to the head office.
• The market share of one of your competitors _____________________________ (expand) by more than 300% in the last twelve months.
• Smoking was permitted inside the office until January this year but then it was banned. Since then, the only local café ________________________ (close) its smoking area.

Work together to fill all the gaps above with the correct tenses (Present Perfect or Past Simple).  

Hint: Eight should be Present Perfect and six should be Past Simple.

Suggested answers

• The company hasn’t upgraded the computers since 2008.
• The company relocated last year but no one likes the new office.
• There has been a boom in office rents in the last six months.
• The government deregulated the insurance industry in the middle of last year and your company is the only one which hasn’t reformed its business because of that yet.
• The company downsized the workforce six months ago and now there aren’t enough staff to do all the work.
• Sales of the new product have made great strides in the last two months, but it is still losing money.
• The company updated its software on Monday, but it has already crashed seven times since then.
• The sales staff were retrained in November. Since then half of the staff have left to get better jobs with other companies.
• The director restructured the department in a very unpopular way at the end of last year, then he left the company two weeks later.
• A product was re-launched at the beginning of this month but its sales have been even worse since then.
• Your company redeveloped land that it owns just five years ago, but since then all the surrounding land has been filled with much more modern developments.
• The CEO decided at the end of last year to slowly decentralise power to local branches but a new CEO has joined this month and wants to bring power back to the head office.
• The market share of one of your competitors has expanded by more than 300% in the last twelve months.
• Smoking was permitted inside the office until January this year but then it was banned. Since then, the only local café has closed its smoking area.

If you haven’t already, discuss the last topic above (as a roleplay meeting).