Creating a Company

Dear students!

In your blog post #9, you have to demonstrate your creativity and skills to incorporate vocabulary related to work and career issues in quite an interesting task.

First of all, explore the vocabulary from your wordlist in more context in your coursebooks:

1. English Vocabulary in Use. Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate: Units 63-66
2. English Vocabulary in Use. Upper-Intermediate and Advanced: Units 40, 81
3. English Collocations in Use: Units 30, 60
4. English Collocations in Use. Advanced: Units 12, 13
5. Oxford Word Skills. Intermediate: Unit 51-54
6. Oxford Word Skills. Advanced: Unit 50 (B)
7. English Idioms in Use. Intermediate: Units 25
8. English Phrasal Verbs in Use: Units 45, 46
9. Oxford Word Skills: Idioms and Phrasals: Unit 36

In addition, on this site you may find a number of definitions and extra practice of the job-related vocabulary.

In your blog post, you have to describe a company (or an organisation) you would like to set up as if you have already done it. Therefore, describe it in a promotional manner to attract new employees.
Your description should include:

• general features (sphere of activity, aims, rules and a motto);

• working conditions (pay, perks etc.);

• descriptions of positions available (two or three);

• qualities that employees should possess;

• any other details that you find relevant.

Keep your description within 150-180 words and use 20-25 items of active vocabulary.
Apart from that, you will have to include a talking avatar in your description using Voki. Use your Voki avatar to provide additional information like a feedback of an employee or a client. Let your imagination lead you! The only requirement is not to repeat what has already been mentioned in your description. The avatar presentation should be around 50-70 words long and include active vocabulary as well.
To create your Voki avatar, follow these steps:

1. Start a new post and make sure you enable this option in your settings:

2. Go to http://voki.com/

3. Choose "Create"

3. Choose a character from many suggested categories (you may as well select a background, choose character's outfit etc.):

4. Give your character a voice! The site offers different options: by phone, text-to-speech or record with a microphone. You have to choose EITHER text-to-speech OR record option.

If you use text-to-speech option, you can either type or paste the text you wish. You also have the option to choose a male or female voice and an accent. Have fun trying out different options!

If you wish to record your voice, you can speak up to one minute.

5. After you have created your Voki avatar, embed it in your post. That is how you're going to do this:

- press "Publish" and name your avatar

- press "save" and close the window that will pop up:

- copy the code and paste it in your blog (the code is long, so make sure you cope the whole thing):

- if you've done everything properly, your code will turn into an avatar as soon as you publish your post. If you wish you may create more than one avatar!

Good luck!