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. 

Task 1

Task 2

Discussion

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Language level

Average: 4.5 (270 votes)

Submitted by POOJA SEHRAWAT on Sat, 23/05/2020 - 14:17

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My favourite learning app is British Council, as it offers variety of fun filled activities to help learning English better. It also assess the level of the learner and suggest the activities accordingly. One can find activities, audios, videos, quizzes, forums etc. covering all the important aspects of English- reading, writing, listening and speaking. To conclude, it's a complete English learning package.

Submitted by xxxwilxxx on Thu, 21/05/2020 - 16:45

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Excuse my user name, I'm William. My favorite app for learning languages is "Lingo Deer". It is far superior compared to "Duolingo", although it is not as popular. Lingo Deer offers a vast amount of information via its user-friendly interface. It presents a humongous database of knowledge, from a broad range of languages such as German, English, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian, and many more. Unfortunately, you need to purchase the application; however, there's always the option of illegal downloading/pirating (I do not support this, but neither do I condemn it).

Submitted by Andrés on Tue, 19/05/2020 - 19:50

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Well, this was an interesting assignment, brought to us by our teacher, Mr Eduardo Campos. Thank you teacher.

Submitted by AlArath on Tue, 19/05/2020 - 19:40

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1...started the company and manages it now. 2...is for students who want to find a tutor. 3...don't have the time or knowledge to help with their children's homework. 4...offers live online support from tutors. 5...often charge lower rates. 6...is already popular. 1....a problem 2... and idea 3...a need 4...itself 5...funding 6...the range of services Duoling because it is very easy to understand the language with all the exercises

Submitted by juliettevaldes on Tue, 19/05/2020 - 19:39

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Kahoot is my favorite app for learning because is a great way to keep students engaged, it focuses on social learning and makes it fun. Also is easy and quick to use, you can use it from any device and it's free. The students can create their own quizzes too, so they can learn and have fun at the same time. Students are encouraged to be leaders by researching, creating and presenting quizzes. Kahoot saves the result of every quiz played over the platform., it's like a competition which also makes the app fun.

Submitted by lcruzmore on Tue, 19/05/2020 - 19:38

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I use different apps for learning. Some of them are Duolingo, Youtube and Skillshare. You can access to different courses online. I feel is very convenient using online apps to clear doubts about homework. I would like to know if there are other great apps as well.

Submitted by KevinXiao0618 on Tue, 19/05/2020 - 19:36

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Recently, Im studying Chinese language in an app called Super Chinese. This app is very efficient and very complete and understandable!

Submitted by Astrid on Tue, 19/05/2020 - 19:36

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My favorite learning app is Duolingo because it helps me learn new languages. I have learn with it several languages like, french, and italian. I like the fact that it is free, unless you want to get exclusive things. The only thing I dislike are the ads after each lesson. But in general, I loves this app and will recommend it fully.