Setting expectations in performance reviews: English practice
Practise setting expectations in performance reviews. This exercise helps you make responsibilities and limits clear before work continues. You take the role of a team member and speak with your manager. You can work alone by recording both parts, or ask a partner to respond naturally.
Make responsibilities and limits clear before work continues.
Your situation
You completed the main project but received feedback that your updates were difficult to follow. You want a practical improvement goal.
Known detail: the next review is in four weeks and the team holds a weekly planning meeting. Your communication task is to agree what a useful update should contain. Keep that task in mind while practising the language; accuracy matters more than sounding elaborate.
| Your role | a team member |
|---|---|
| Other person | your manager |
| What is unresolved | the updates did not make risks and next steps clear |
| Possible agreed outcome | you will use a short update with progress, risk and next action |
A useful language pattern
What I can confirm is … What still needs agreement is …
Confidence is useful when it is supported by a clear scope and honest limits.
Example: “What I can confirm is that the next review is in four weeks and the team holds a weekly planning meeting. What still needs agreement is how we agree what a useful update should contain.” This is one way to express the idea. Change the wording when the actual situation calls for a different level of formality.
| Less useful wording | Leave it all with me. |
|---|---|
| Clearer follow-up | Not yet. Let us list what is confirmed and what still needs a decision so we do not create the wrong expectation. |
Vocabulary for this conversation
| constructive feedback | comments intended to help someone improve |
|---|---|
| expectation | what someone is required or hoped to do |
| development goal | a specific capability or behaviour to improve |
An eight-minute practice
- Minute 1: read the situation and identify what is known, what is uncertain and what you need to agree what a useful update should contain.
- Minutes 2–3: State two confirmed points, one unresolved point and who will check it.
- Minutes 4–5: ask a partner to reply differently from the example. Respond to their meaning rather than restarting your prepared answer.
- Minutes 6–7: review the three criteria below. Rewrite one unclear sentence using shorter, more specific words.
- Minute 8: repeat the difficult exchange without looking at the model. Finish by confirming the next step.
Make the exercise easier or harder
You do not need an idiom or a complicated sentence to sound professional. Check that the listener understands the message, can ask a question and knows which action follows. This exercise does not assess your accent or certify a language level.
| More support | Keep this pattern visible: What I can confirm is … What still needs agreement is … Practise one exchange at a time and ask the other person to speak more slowly when needed. |
|---|---|
| More challenge | Add a new constraint: the other person cannot answer immediately. Keep the discussion accurate while you agree what a useful update should contain. |
| For your actual work | Replace the fictional detail “the next review is in four weeks and the team holds a weekly planning meeting” with an appropriate, non-confidential example from your work. |
An example conversation
What I can confirm is that the next review is in four weeks and the team holds a weekly planning meeting. What still needs agreement is how we agree what a useful update should contain.
Can we assume the rest is already agreed?
Not yet. Let us list what is confirmed and what still needs a decision so we do not create the wrong expectation.
Let us confirm what we have agreed and what still needs checking.
Your working sheet.
Make the exercise your own. Notes are saved in this browser when storage is available. Download a copy to keep; avoid confidential information on a shared device.
Example: What I can confirm is that the next review is in four weeks and the team holds a weekly planning meeting. What still needs agreement is how we agree what a useful update should contain.
Example: Can we assume the rest is already agreed?
Example: Not yet. Let us list what is confirmed and what still needs a decision so we do not create the wrong expectation.
Example: Let us confirm: you will use a short update with progress, risk and next action. Have I understood correctly?
Review your work
This is a reflection checklist, not an automated assessment.
Questions
Do I need advanced English for this exercise?+
What should I focus on in performance reviews?+
Can I use this dialogue at work?+
Original fictional language practice. Model answers are examples, not the only correct wording. The self-review is not a formal language assessment.
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