English Podcasts | Textile Factory Tour

Textile Factory Tour

Listen to Greg give Liz, a visitor from the UK, a textile factory tour in France that makes upholstery for car seats.

Greg greets Liz in reception, before taking her on a tour of the research and development department, the weaving workshop, packing and quality control and finally to the logistics and warehouse department.

This is a live tour, so there is a lot of practice listening to a conversation between two native speakers talking with a lot of background noise from machinery, something which can be very challenging for language learners.

Greg starts off by greeting Liz and offering her refreshments, in this case, coffee after her long journey from the United Kingdom.

At first the greeting is formal, but they quickly slip into first-name terms, which is very typical for British people, who don’t hang too much on ceremony.

If you are from another country, can you see the differences in the formalities, such as using first names to a stranger after a relatively short time.

Meeting new people, customers, clients, suppliers or sub-contractors, can be awkward at times, notice how Greg breaks the ice by offering refreshments and asking about Liz’s voyage from the UK to France.

Greg tries to make the visit as simple and as interesting as possible, as Liz is not a technical person, but he asks her if she has any questions along the way and answers as simply as possible.

Greg asks a final time if Liz has any questions at the end of the visit and suggests that she sends any questions at a later date by email.

It is clear that Greg is used to conducting textile factory tours, both with technical and non-technical visitors and he is very able to pitch the tone of the textile factory tour to each audience.