Talking point: Looking for a job

This week's talking point is looking for a job. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas come to mind more easily the day you get together with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

Think about some family members and friends or acquaintaces that are employed at the moment.

What do they do?

How did they get their jobs?

What different methods do people use to find a job?

What do managers look for when they employ someone new? Choose the four qualities that you think are most important.

creative thinking

good grades

work experience

self-confidence

good problem-solving skills

a friendly personality

the ability to work in a team

a positive attitude to work

practical skills

Here are some things that school students can do to help them prepare for their working lives.
Talk to each other about how useful these experiences might be.
Then decide which experience would have the greatest effect on preparing students for their working lives and finding a job. 

meeting employers at a careers day
learning about money management
working part-time

roleplaying  job interviews

doing volunteer work

Have you ever had a job interview?

Was it a good experience? Why (not)?

Did you prepare for it? If so, how?

What questions were you asked at the interview?

What unusual job interviews have you heard of or experienced yourself?

To illustrate the point you can watch the famous The Candidate Heineken job interview video.

What's your management style?
Passionate... Passionate... Passionate...
And what's your biggest weakness?
Being stubborn... stubborn... stubborn I think...
Can you give me one reason why I should hire you...
Because sports is my passion...
I'm really passionate about football...
I really like football...

All job interviews are the same.
Same standard questions. Same prepared answers.
When you are looking for a job... for an interview, paint or brush, you look good, you feel good...
How to find the right talent for an event and sponsorship internship among 1734 applicants?
HEINEKEN presents THE CANDIDATE. The first job interview you can't prepare for...

TEST 1: KICK OFF
Hi, hello, how are you...
Vincent Mamela
Ok, Vince
And so you liked it when we were walking hand in hand?
Ehm...
It made me feel comfortable, yes...
Ohm interesting, we'll see what happens...
well thank you very much for your time I suppose...
ok
thank you very much... thank you...

TEST 2: MEDICAL ASSISTANCE
Sir, do you, are you sure...
I'm fine, I'm just... I'll get a little water in a second...
Ok, if you say no
Stay with us
If we'd talk about money, how much money do you think you would like to have...for the position?
Ehm
Last time this happened it was at a disco...
The discotheque?

TEST 3: THE EXIT
Fiery and passionate or cold and calculated...
Ehm...
Ehm...
I would say cold and calculated because...
Wrong answer...
Fiery and passionate ...other people get infected by my enthusiasm...
You think I'm getting infected right now?
No..
We need to go...come on Simon, Mr. Ross...Please...
Come on...we need to get going...
We're missing a hand here... Can you help us please?...
Can you help us? Please. We have a gap here...Sir...
Ok it's Ok...
come on, jump... come on...
The best 3 interviews were voted by the Heineken Internet community on an internal portal.
The most voted candidate was brought to the Juventus Stadium for a final test. JUVENTUS-CHELSEA.
Guy Lutching. You got the job. Guy is now working at Heineken... Still infecting people with his enthusiasm. HEINEKEN. OPEN YOUR WORLD.

Alison Chung, a digital detective

Alison Chung is not wired like most people. This can present challenges socially, but from a business perspective, it’s her competitive advantage as the owner of a consulting firm that is essentially a digital detective agency.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.



1 How often does Alison use digital devices when she's with her family?
2 What was Alison's upbringing like?
3 In what languages did she read detective stories?
4 What subject did she excel at?
5 How much was the write-off the client had written to the law firm?
6 How long had Alison been answering questions when she was enquired about box 97?
7 Who usually hires her company?
8 What is the worst part of her job?

Sometimes people ask me, you know, ‘when does it get busy for you?’ And I say, you know, ‘whenever there’s lying, cheating and dishonesty, it’s busy. And I’m sorry to say, we’re a little bit on the busy side.’
TeamWerks is a technology consulting firm with a particular focus in computer forensics. Whenever there’s a question as to who did what when, it is probably on some digital device, ready for somebody like me to find. We can tell you the text messages that were sent even if they’re erased. 
My family members will not allow me to be in the presence of their digital devices. When I visit, everybody locks everything up.
I had a very traditional upbringing. My parents were very strict. When I was naughty and my mother would say go to your room, I was thrilled because behind closed doors I would be doing puzzles and pretend to solve crimes. I read every detective novel in English and Chinese that was available.
I really liked math because it was easy for me. I was good with numbers.
That was a time during the tech boom so there was a lot of business to be had. So I just kind of went with my gut and said, you know what, I just want to form a small company and I just want us to work on tech projects.
Ok, we just received this hard drive.
We fell into the forensics. I received a call from some law firm partners I had known and they said we need somebody to go through more than 20 boxes of computer code because their client had written a one-line $50,000,000 write-off and the IRS’ questioning whether or not that write-off is valid.
I’ll never forget this; there were five men in half-glasses and they looked very stern and they said ‘Good morning. Who is that girl?’ And, one of the attorneys said ‘Oh, that’s our expert.’ The five IRS lawyers started laughing and they said ‘How much do you want to bet that we can break her down?’ And the first half-glasses looked at me and said, ‘Yes, Ms. Chung, our expert witness here, would you care to explain to us what happened in box number 78?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I would be delighted to.’ And so, the inquiry went on and on, and box after box. I think it was at the end of the fourth hour, the question was ‘OK. What happened to 97?’ I said ‘Oh, that was an exciting time. 97 was a good box.’ And at that point, I smiled to myself, I knew I had them.
When they said that we won, I was screaming for joy and I said ‘Give me another one! Give me another one!’
Embedded in all this code, that is a nugget of information that will be prove to be useful.
We get hired by the lawyers to examine computers and then, it’s not until you get into the bowels of the system and you look at who is talking to whom, and you realize, ‘oh my gosh, this is organized crime.’ And so at this point, I have a decision to make: I could resign or just tell the truth. It is dangerous, it is risky.
I have thought that I might be in physical danger doing this job because of the robberies but because I am Buddhist, I believe that when it’s my time, that’s when it will be. I’m not fearful. But I have taken the necessary precautions and I think that’s enough.
I always wanted to solve mysteries, I just didn’t know that I was going to be a digital detective. I think differently, I look at things differently. I mean, sometimes, I go to social events and see somebody and I’m wondering, ‘Wow, I wonder what’s on their computer.’

Key:
1 never
2 strict
3 English and Chinese
4 maths
5 $50,000,000 
6 four hours 
7 lawyers
8 the risk of physical danger

Listening test: Shakespeare, my hero

Listen to two friends talking about Shakespeare and choose the option A, B or C which best completes each sentence.

source: St George International

1 Melissa
A. has a degree in English studies.
B. has taken part in Shakespearean performances.
C. knows Shakespeare well.

2 Saying Macbeth
A. is preferable to saying ‘the Scottish play’.
B. might make you do silly things if you’re an actor.
C. will usually bring you bad luck.

3 Melissa enjoys Macbeth because
A. it is fast-moving.
B. it is less violent than other tragedies.
C. it is not as profound as other plays.

4 Melissa
A. used to be a teacher before becoming an actor.
B. has played the role of Lady Macbeth
C. says Shakespeare is boring for children.

5 In Melissa’s opinion (…) to remember the lines.
A. actors usually have problems
B. plays with rhyme and rhythm make it easier
C. knowing what you’re saying is key

6 For actors interpreting Shakespeare
A. is always a challenge.
B. is only motivating if they belong to the Royal Shakespeare Company.
C. represents the most successful point of their career.

7 Shakespeare is relevant today
A. because human nature hasn’t changed.
B. despite the fact people have changed.
C. the world’s problems are similar to those in Shakespeare’s times.

Hello, again, Melissa.
Hi.
What about historical heroes for you… from Britain?
I’d have to say William Shakespeare.
Classic.
Definitely. Studied a lot at school and at university and I’ve seen performances obviously. But I just think it’s…
What’s your favourite play?
Macbeth, I think.
Why?
Well, …
Ah, you’re not meant to say Macbeth!
Oh, the Scottish play.
The Scottish play.
Yes.
Bad luck, isn’t it, is to say it.
Well, only if you are in a theatre, I think.
Ok.
And lots of actors are very superstitious about it and may have all these techniques if you say you have to run round the theatre three times or something to cancel the bad luck.
Ok. And, yes, so why, why is that your favourite?
Well, it’s very action-packed, more than the others. I don’t know, that sounds strange when talking about Shakespeare because people think it’s dry and deep…
A bit car-chase.
Yeah, explosions and all sorts… Yeah, it’s quite violent, a lot of the tragedies are quite violent, but it’s sort of got a bit of everything. There’s like the light relief, a bit of comedy, occasionally, so it’s not too much doom and gloom.
Something for everyone.
Yeah, absolutely, a bit with the dong.
Hold on. Weren’t you a bit of a thesp before you were a teacher?
I was, yes, I did a bit of Shakespeare.
Enthralled of the boards.
I did, yes, or tried to.
And you did Shakespeare in plays?
Yes, yeah. I worked with a company who did, well, performed Shakespeare plays in schools, in primary schools around England.
And did the kids get it? Did they understand it?
Yes, absolutely, yeah, yeah, because we didn’t do just the whole play straight with nothing else, because that’s a bit boring for children. We kind of stopped and talked about what was gonna happen next and the characters…
So did you actually do Macbeth?
Yes, yes, we did Macbeth…
So were you Lady Macbeth ouch damned spot?
I unfortunately wasn’t. I’d love to do that scene because it’s fantastic, who doesn’t want to go mad on stage…
Ok.
… and just run around and scream and all the crazy things she does, it’s brilliant. But I, no, unfortunately I wasn’t Lady Macbeth.
Ok… and what, what were you then?
I was the narrator kind of person. I kind of got the kids involved, they got up and did some lines and…
Oh, really?
… helped them understand what was happening, and things like that I’d say.
And something I’ve always wanted to ask actually for someone who is a Shakespearean actor.
Oh, that is me yes.
How do you remember all those lines? What’s the system?
Well, I suppose everyone has their own system, I don’t think there’s one way, but they’re quite easy to remember in terms of… they rhyme for a start and there’s a regular pattern like a rhythmic, a regular rhythm so you can follow to help yourself as well. And if you understand what you’re saying and why, then it’s natural to say it, so it becomes part of… the emotions.
Ok, and as a thespian, a thespian, do… is Shakespeare the zenith of the acting world?
I guess it is, yeah, it’s like the pinnacle of everybody’s ambitions, especially like working with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford it’s, yeah, it’s very important for a lot of people and rightly so, I think.
And do you think the… ok it’s in all the English, but what about the themes in Shakespearean plays, are they actually relevant anymore?
Oh, yeah, I think so. I mean, have humans really changed that much in the last four hundred years in terms of…
I’ve changed in the last five minutes.
That’s just because you’re a fashion god but like emotionally I don’t think human beings have changed, the world we live in has changed enormously but in terms of our relationships with each other, the things we want, our ambitions, our dark sides, our…
So they are timeless universal themes, eternal truths.
Absolutely, yes, that’s a good way to describe it, yeah.
 
KEY:
1C 2B 3A 4C 5C 6C 7A

Extensive listening: 3 lessons on success from an Arab businesswoman

Professional Arab women juggle more responsibilities than their male counterparts, and they face more cultural rigidity than Western women. What can their success teach us about tenacity, competition, priorities and progress?

Tracing her career as an engineer, advocate and mother in Abu Dhabi, Leila Hoteit shares, in this TED Talk, three lessons for thriving in the modern world.

You can read a full transcript here.

Reading test: For the first time in a century wild tiger numbers go up

In this week's reading test we are going to practise the 'insert the word' kind of task. To do so, we are going to use the Huffington Post article For the first time in a century wild tiger numbers go up.

Read the text and choose the word (A to O) which best fits in gaps 1 to 10. Four of the words are not needed. 0 has been completed as an example.

For the first time in a century wild tiger numbers go up

For wild tigers, the numbers have not been kind.
In 1900, an (0) … 100,000 tigers wandered about free on our planet. Yet within a hundred years, that number gone down by more than 95 percent — the result of uncontrolled poaching and (1) … habitat loss.
But it seems the tide may finally be (2) … for the majestic cat. On Sunday, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) announced that wild tiger numbers were on the (3) … for the first time in over a century.
There are now about 3,890 tigers in the wild, up from about 3,200 in 2010, said WWF, citing national tiger survey numbers.
The increase could partly be attributed to growing tiger populations in India, Russia, Nepal and Bhutan as well as better protection of the (4) … species globally, the organization said. The improved count could also be the result of other factors, (5) … better survey methods.
(6) … still cautious, conservationists regarded the new global count as a positive (7) … forward for the world’s tigers.
“More important (8) … the absolute numbers is the trend, and we’re seeing the trend going in the right direction,” Ginette Hemley, WWF’s senior vice president of wildlife conservation, said.
Carter Roberts, president and CEO of WWF, added in a statement: “We’ve watched tigers (9) … for decades and have dreamed of bending that curve in the other direction. In a sea of bad news on the environment we are (10) … significant progress on one of the greatest comeback stories in conservation.”


A - as
B - decline
C - doing
D - endangered
E - estimated 0 Example
F - increase
G - like
H - making
I - rise
J - step
K - than
L - that
M - turning
N - while
O - widespread

Photo: AlexTurton via Getty Images

KEY:
1O 2M 3I 4D 5G 6N 7J 8K 9B 10H

A cure for diabetes in India?

Could a simple change in the diet of expectant mothers prevent their children from developing diabetes?

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.



1 What are the two arguments Professor Fall gives against making middle-aged people lose weight to prevent diabetes?
2 Where does Professor Fall's plan to prevent diabetes rely on?
3 What chemical element is important to bone growth?
4 How many snacks are made in the kitchen every day?
5 How many women have participated in the project?
6 Why is it important that the women come to the centre and have the supplement there?
7 As well as having their mental development tested, what other elements of a baby's growth are measured and recorded?
8 Despite the improvement in mothers' diet, which potential problem are the scientists coming across?

Inspired by David's ideas, his colleague, Professor Caroline Fall, is leading a study with the potential to fix the diabetes epidemic in India.
At the moment, if you talk about preventing diabetes, people are talking about making middle-aged people lose weight, and A, that's impossible to do, and B, it doesn't seem to work very well anyway. And so the idea that you could build a human being that was more resistant to this disease was amazing to me.
Caroline's plan to halt the diabetes epidemic doesn't rely on high-tech labs or fancy science. It rests mainly on these women and one kitchen. These recipes contain all the crucial building blocks needed to build a body resistant to disease.
Folic acid, calcium, iron, vitamin A. The calcium will be important for bone growth. The green leafy vegetables contain small quantities of essential fatty acids which are important for brain growth. All of those nutrients are important in different tissues of the body. The foetus, at a very, very early microscopic stage, is sensitive to the nutrients around it and if we miss that, we feel that we would be missing the most important stage of development.
Every day, over 1,500 snacks are made in this kitchen. There are nutrient-rich recipes and others that are green vegetable-free to act as scientific controls. They are taken to about 50 clinics in the slums across the city. In total, over 6,700 women have participated and each must begin eating the supplements well before they fall pregnant. It's a logistical nightmare where the utmost care must be taken to be scientific.
I'm very glad to have met Meera. It's been hard work, it's been hard work setting up a study like this. To carry it out on the ground in a population like this is very difficult.
It's mandatory for a woman to come to the centre and have the supplement in front of the project clerk because it is very important, you know, because if they take it home, somebody else can eat it. They can throw it out or the child can eat it. We are not sure who the supplement has gone into, whose stomach, so it's very important to have women coming to the centre.
The centre is full of women eating supplements from well before pregnancy until they give birth. And there are also babies who must be measured at one, three, six and 12 months. Their weight, length and body fat are recorded, and they are even testing their mental development. It is an ambitious long-term project.
For seven-and-a-half years.
How many more?
Forever, I think.
So nice!
The results of this study will begin to come in next year.
We're providing better nutrition into the mother, but the mother herself has had a poor early development, which may affect the quality of her eggs. It certainly affects the size of her uterus and the quality of the blood supply to the uterus. So she is still constraining the development and growth of that foetus.

Key:
1 a) that's impossible to do; b) it doesn 't seem to work very well
2 the kitchen or cooking or diet or recipes
3 calcium
4 1,500
5 6,700
6 to make sure that they actually have it 
7 weight, length and body fat
8 mothers themselves had a poor early development, which may affect the quality of their eggs

Gori, birthplace of Stalin

Hugh Bonneville and Jessica Hynes find themselves travelling to Gori (Georgia), Stalin's birthplace.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.



1 What does Hugh say about the road?
2 What does Hugh want to see in Gori?
3 What is the message in the inscription Jessica reads?
4 What is the surprising thing you can see in the shower?
5 Why is Hugh concerned when he leaves the museums?
6 What did the minister of culture write about the museum?
7 Who wrote the message in the visitors' book Hugh reads out?

I don't want to tempt fate, but this is a remarkably good road.
You've blown it now, Hugh.
They're driving to a small town called Gori whose place in history relies solely on the fact that it's the birthplace of communist dictator Joseph Stalin.
So, Gori, where we're going to, Stalin's birthplace, there's a museum. I'd be interested to see how honest an account or how much of the rest of the world's view of Stalin is included in the museum in his birthplace.
A huge memorial has been built around the house where Stalin was born and several surrounding blocks flattened to make way for the museum dedicated to Gori's favourite son.
So, this is Stalin's house, literally kind of sitting on its own in the middle of nowhere. There's something really exciting about coming somewhere like this. It's such living history, and imagining Stalin as a little boy looking at exactly this, all the notches on the wood. Wonder if there's any initials.
JV was here.
You can go inside.
It's incredible to think of him sort of sitting at that table and kind of... living here.
So, this carriage used to belong to the Tsar and was appropriated by Stalin. There's even a bar for the shower. There was a meeting of the Allied commanders of Stalin and Churchill and Roosevelt on a train. I wonder if it was this one. You definitely feel ghosts in here, you do, when you consider what Stalin meant for millions and millions of people.
Hugh searches the museum for some answers. But comes away more concerned about its omissions.
I think my thoughts about this place are solidifying. I feel quite angry now. There's a statement downstairs from the minister of culture, I guess it is, saying that this museum is being left as it was, as part of an objective history of his life and his birthplace. It's not. This is a shrine to Stalin really, I feel, and I don't think I could put it any better than… This is the visitors' book I've been looking at and there's a couple from New York who wrote this:
How can you expect the world to support you in your just struggle against the Russians if you have no courage to judge Stalin and his crimes against humanity?
Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Key:
1 it's remarkably good
2 a museum
3 JV was here
4 a bar  
5 because of its omissions 
6 it is an objective history of Stalin's life and his birthplace
7 a couple from New York