A business interview

A business interview

Listen to the business interview to practise and improve your listening skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Preparation

Transcript

Presenter: Welcome to today's show. We're very happy to have Anna Oliveira as our guest today. Anna is the creator and founder of HomeworX – spelled with an 'x' we should note – an app which helps teenagers with their homework. Thanks for coming in, Anna.

Anna: Thanks for having me.

Presenter: So, tell us about your app. How does it work?

Anna: Well, teenagers and their parents have numerous challenges when it comes to homework these days. In many families both parents work and don't have much available time to help their kids with their homework. And even if they do have time to help, they may not be able to offer support with the content. What I mean is, they may not know, or at least remember, enough in any given subject to support.

Presenter: You mean they might not be able to remember complex maths or might have never studied certain subjects, such as biology or economics, themselves?

Anna: Exactly. So they might want to support their children with their homework, but have neither the time nor the knowledge to do so.

Presenter: I see. So the app helps solve this problem?

Anna: Yes, and more. The next issue is that tutors can be expensive, and there may be long waiting lists for specialist tutors in the town or region you live in. Our HomeworX app brings students and tutors together online. Students can search a database of pre-approved tutors and sign up for live online support. They don't need to be in the same town or city.

Presenter: That sounds really great.

Anna: It is. And this approach also enables us to offer the tutoring services at lower prices because there's no travelling time involved for the tutor to get to the student's home. And tutors who live in remote areas are happy to get access to more students, and be able to work from home, even at lower rates.

Presenter: This all sounds great. So, how did you come up with the idea?

Anna: Well, as you might guess, I was one of those parents I described earlier. I really wanted to help my son with his homework, but I was either too busy with work or I didn't actually know anything about the subjects he was having difficulty with. Also, we live in an area where there aren't many tutors and the ones that are there are either very expensive or have long waiting lists.

Presenter: Yes. I can understand your predicament. Well, it sounds like a very useful app that is clearly meeting a need. And its popularity obviously speaks for itself.

Anna: Thank you.

Presenter: So, do you have plans for the future?

Anna: We've just secured some funding and hope to expand the range of services we offer using the app.

Presenter: We wish you the best of luck. Thanks again for coming in. That was Anna Oliveira, founder of the tutoring app HomeworX (with an 'x', don't forget!), which is available for both Apple and Android devices. Join us again next week for another business interview. Have a great week, everyone. 

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Discussion

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Average: 4.5 (253 votes)

Submitted by Gus2019 on Thu, 25/04/2019 - 23:17

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Interesting reading. In the course of the years I used many resources for learning diferents things such as internet, classroom courses, on-line courses and among others. However the most impotart is how determinated you are to learn something new and how useful is in your life. In these day I use a lot of apps and websites like this to learning english. I wish you the best of luck to all you! Sincerely, Gustavo
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Submitted by josedaniel33 on Sat, 20/04/2019 - 19:29

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I don´t use ant app, but I use other way my favorites are British Council page and TED AX

Submitted by crazysezer123 on Tue, 16/04/2019 - 19:12

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ı can't remember my favorite app, because ı lost my phone 2 weeks ago but ı think the snap-tube is the best app ı have ever seen in terms of downloading videos and music

Submitted by beatrizGY on Thu, 04/04/2019 - 10:14

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I use a german site englisch-hilfen.de for practice some subjects in English. You can choose what you want to practice and you can find lots of tests to do with answers at the end. Also, there are crosswords and other type of resources.

Submitted by crisoleo32 on Thu, 04/04/2019 - 03:01

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My favoriye app is Engilsh Radio in which we can find different sections. There are many station radios options from divers English speaking countries. However, there is a section about ietls essays and you can chat with people worldwide. So, English radio app come out a excelent tool to learn English.

Submitted by juanfra366 on Wed, 03/04/2019 - 19:10

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Babbel is my favourite app for learning. It's very popular and useful.
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Submitted by Belmiro Lourenco on Wed, 03/04/2019 - 00:11

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That's very kind of you , it's really fantastic , by the way I've an application that I do love learning from, it's called Duolingo so it helps me a lot on improving my listening and writing skills and then I wish I could do something similar thing in order to help my community as I am leaving in a backward country so many students don't have anyone to support them with their homework, whenever they are given a task at school , they come to me and ask for a help .

Submitted by Claudette Ndenzako on Mon, 25/03/2019 - 18:52

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My favourite app for learning is Math Wizz for primary school pupils. This app is game based learning and is really fun. My daughters use it to improve their Maths skills. The strategies to solve problems are very well explained and easy to understand. Before I found it difficult to help them because I worked full time and came home tired. Everyone ended up being frustrated when I tried to help as I didn't understand the way they learned at school and the strategies the teachers use these days.