How to Use the Present Perfect Tense and Passive in Business Situations - Present Perfect / Passive and Simple Past- Meetings Roleplays

Try to find a way to use the Present Perfect  and Passive in a Natural Way

For native speakers, using the present perfect and passive comes naturally. In other words, we don’t think about grammar rules when we speak English.

In fact, most native speakers have never heard of the present perfect and are not even aware that they are using the passive. So how do they use it correctly without having learnt the grammar?

Protocol for International meetings

Well, the answer to that is: because it feels right - it is instinctive.

This is what I mean by speaking with the present perfect or passive in a natural way. You use it because it feels right - without thinking.

And this is the goal English learners should be trying to achieve.

You don’t want to be thinking about rules when you’re having a conversation in English.

Having said that, though, rules are important in the first stages of the learning process for non-natives.

Present Perfect, Passive and Simple Past- Meetings Roleplays 

The task:
Choose one of the situation topics below. Imagine that you are a team leader, a community leader or a manager and, according to the situation you choose, you invite your team to a meeting to discuss the problem and try to find a mutually satisfactory settlement - one that everyone agrees to. Start by welcoming them to the meeting and thanking them for attending. You can have a little small talk (if you think that it's appropriate) and then try to discover what has caused them to express their dissatisfaction with the current work situation or conditions. Close the meeting with a brief summary and motivational statement. This is an exercise of being precise in your language and using the correct sentence structures and grammar to avoid any misunderstandings or confusion. 

  1. There is a probem with the suppliers who ________ (deliver) on time over the last 6 months and the quality of their service in general ________ (deteriorate). 
  2. The company _________ (not upgrade) the computers since 2020.                                     Office equipment (such as laptops and screens) have not been upgraded for 2 years
  3.  The company ______(relocate) last year but no one likes the new office.                                   The office space has been relocated to a new building
  4. The roads in the town ___________ (deteriorate) and in some cases they are impassable - Public Transport ______________(affect) and _______(delay) as a result.
  5. There _______(be) a boom in rental prices (commercial or residential) in the last six months.    Rental prices ___________ (increase) dramatically over the last year. 
  6. 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.
  7. The company __________ (downsize) the workforce six months ago and now there aren’t enough staff to do all the work.
  8. Sales of the new product_______ (improve = make great strides) in the last two months, but it is still losing money.
  9. The company updated its software on Monday, but it ______________ (crash) seven times since then.
  10. The sales staff were retrained in November. Since then half of the staff ______________ (leave) to get better jobs with other companies.
  11. The director _____________ (restructure) the department in a very unpopular way at the end of last year, then he left the company two weeks later.
  12. A product was re-launched at the beginning of this month but its sales _________ (be) even worse since then.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. The market share of one of your competitors _________ (expand) by more than 300% in the last twelve months.
  16. 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.

  1. hasn’t upgraded
  2.  relocated
  3. has been
  4. deregulated
  5.  downsized
  6. has improved
  7. has crashed
  8. has left
  9. restructured
  10. have been
  11. redeveloped
  12. decided
  13. has expanded 
  14. has closed