Essential English for Teamwork & Sharing Ideas

Hello. Fancy seeing you again. Well done for

making your way here. It shows that you're

looking to learn, and I hope I can teach you

something. Today, we're looking at the skill

of brainstorming. Or, if you prefer to be overly politically correct, mind mapping.

What is that? That is when you are in a meeting

or just a place with other colleagues, and

you're asked to put your thoughts together. Yep, you'll typically be given a big bit of

sugar paper and some pens, a bit like this,

to write down what you think. Normally, you'll

have someone talking in front of a whiteboard,

giving a speech, and then they'll say, "Right,

you do some talking now." And it can be really

awkward. You're sat there in a group, and

you're like, "You speak." And the other person's

like, "No, you speak." And what everyone really

wants is for the other people to be generous

with their ideas, because otherwise time just

goes really slowly. Yeah? It's much more interesting

if you're actually having a good discussion.

So, in this lesson, I'm going to be giving you some phrases and ideas for taking part

in a brainstorming session. Okay, right. So,

the first moment will be when the paper and

the pens are given out to you, and someone might ask, "So, who'd like to get the ball

rolling?" Who'd like to get the ball rolling?

To get the ball rolling, to get it starting

to move, which is a metaphor for you having

an interesting discussion, i.e. someone speak.

Who's going to speak? Well, as well as someone

speaking, we need someone writing. So, the

next question you could ask, or someone else

might ask, "Who's going to volunteer to be

scribe then?" "Scribe" is the person that

writes. Yeah? If you volunteer, it means you're

happy to do something for the good of it. Yeah? So, without being paid. "Who's going

to volunteer to be scribe then?" And then

hopefully someone says, "Yeah, I will. I don't

mind doing that." And then you might say, "Oh,

nice one." Or, "Thanks." Or, "Well done, Paul.

That's really great." That sounded a bit sarcastic.

"Well done, Paul. Thanks, Paul." I had a boss

called Paul once. We were a bit like this, me and Paul. Anyway, moving on.

Right. So, we've got someone to write. Now we need to get some ideas. Well, let's have

something to talk about. Why not? How to encourage

health and fitness in the workplace. How to

encourage workers to be healthy. So, you're

trying to get someone to speak. Anyone? What

we thinking? What we thinking? This is short

for, "What are we thinking?" But in speech,

we might just contract it to, "What we thinking

about this, guys?" "We", yeah? That pronoun to

include others. Or, if you feel that it's not

going to make the other person feel uncomfortable,

you might say, "What are you thinking about this

one, Jodie? What are you thinking about this?

What are your thoughts on this?" And then Jodie

or whoever it is might say, "Well, I don't know.

I suppose..." So, you could say, "Well, I don't

know. Maybe it's about having a bowl and giving

free fruit out." A very boring idea, but

once we have one idea, then more ideas come.

So, I mean, brainstorming, we typically have this

idea here, and then it reaches out to another

idea. And then from this one idea of the fruit,

then from there we might have another idea.

Or that might go to another idea. So, this is

the fruit idea, and then Pauline might say,

"I think it's about giving free gym passes." We might have the gym idea,

and that will give some more ideas. And then someone else will think this.

So, once you get one idea down, then you can spread your ideas out on the page.

Okay. So, someone volunteers an idea, which

is really generous of them. You know, we say,

"Thanks. Nice. That's a really good idea. That's

a really good idea." So, what do these words

actually mean in this context? That's an

interesting idea. It could mean that's a really

weird idea. That's an interesting idea. Or it

could mean genuine. That's an interesting idea.

It depends how you sort of say it. Unusual could

also be a bit strange. That's an unusual idea.

But we want to give compliments. We want to make people in our group feel

good about what they're contributing. "That's a great idea. Yeah. Thanks. No,

really interesting." And then your job is to take it on to the next level.

"Yeah. I suppose we could maybe ask for a water machine at work as well."

Yeah. So, we're looking to extend. "Absolutely.

I think..." Yeah. And also, maybe we could...

So, it's like... Imagine it's like a game of

tennis. Yeah? We hit the ball, and then what

do we do when the ball comes over to the other

side of the net? Do we run off the tennis court,

or do we try and hit the ball back? That's conversation, basically. Shame I can't hear

what you're thinking, but, you know, maybe you

can write a comment at the end or something.

Okay. So, extending ideas. "I'm thinking more

along the lines of... I'm thinking more along

the lines of..." So, here we have a line, and

this person is thinking, "No, no, no. I'm not

sure about this line. I'm thinking something

different." "I'm thinking more along the lines

of..." It's quite a sort of vague and general

way of introducing an idea, but it's also

good vocab at the same time. So, it's a good

phrase to use. "I'm thinking more along the lines

of..." If someone says something that you were

about to say, you could say, "You've taken the

words right out of my mouth. You've taken the words... Yeah, I was ready to speak,

but you've taken the words. You've taken them out of my mouth."

So, you could say that if you hear someone

saying something that you really agree with.

Okay, so our mind map is looking a little empty, so we need to get a few more ideas,

and we've also got... We're looking at the clock, and we've got, like,

two minutes before the next section, so we can't just sit there going...

Yeah. Yeah, we've got some ideas. It's about, okay, let's get some more ideas.

Anyone else got any thoughts? Anyone else got any

thoughts? Actually, yeah. No, I do. What about if

once a month we organize an outing and we go

and do a walk all together, like at the beach or

in a forest or something? Yeah, you're so right.

That would be really great. We could ask all of

our families along, and no one would turn up. No.

No, it would be really fun. Again, we're wanting

to expand, so someone gives a little idea and

we're expanding. That's what a brainstorm mind

map is, expanding ideas. I'd like to expand on

that, actually. I think we could promote that,

and I think it would be really beneficial to

everyone. You know, it would improve staff

relationships and da-da-da-da-da-da-da. We've

still got one more minute until the next bit

of the talk. So, again, do we just sit there silently, twiddling our thumbs? No.

No. We get some more ideas. Shall we just go

round and hear from everybody one more time?

Shall we just go round and hear any more ideas?

Shall we? It's a proposal. Shall we just? A

filler word doesn't mean anything. Shall we

go round and listen to everyone one more time?

Now, if you are totally stuck and you can't

think of anything to say, then these three words

offer you a way into sharing an idea. How might

we? So, always be thinking, like, how might we?

How might we encourage people to go on the walk?

Ah, well, we could put posters up in the staff

room. We could plan a really good walk. We could

go to the pub at the end, so it's fun as well.

So, how might we? So, any kind of question we

can think about this. How might we encourage

people to eat the fruit? Oh, we could have kiwi

fruit, and we could have grapes, and we could

have bananas and apples, and so it's interesting.

Okay? So, these three words help you to expand

your thoughts. Hope in today's lesson there has

been a useful phrase for you. What you can do now

is have a go at doing the quiz and see if

you've remembered the meaning of these phrases.

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