Introduction & Rules

Foreword

You are members of the board of directors of “The Company”. Everyone has got a different role (e.g. CFO, PR Director or Marketing Director) and would probably favor projects supporting his or her own field of expertise. Imagine that you are experts in your domain and act like that. What is more important, have fun and practice English, after all, it is just an educational game.

Resources

Your task is to distribute resources (basic and only units used in the game – they include money, manpower, technology etc.) to solve problems of “The Company” and support various projects that might help you. After you decide how to use your resources, the chairperson of “The Company” will fill in a form distributing them accordingly. Consequently, you will see results of your actions and funding. New challenges will arise in the second part of the game; you will have to deal with these as well.

It is up to you what will happen with your initial resources. The board of directors which will come after you (the very next group) will inherit your final amount of resources.

How long will it take to restore “The Company” to its previous glory? Or will it go bankrupt? You can see the current trends in the Graphs section.

Note: During the game you spend percentage of your resources in the form. You can fill in any integer (whole number) from 0 to 100 for a particular project or issue as long as the sum is 100 or less. You can decide not to spend all the resources but you cannot spend more than you have.

To-do List

Check before you are done with this (pre-speaking) part of the activity:

  • I have watched (listened to) all the radio programmes.
  • I have read the newspaper article about “The Product” and “The Company”.
  • I have gone through all the graphs.
  • I know what the current issues and projects of “The Company” are.
  • I might have even read the article about worst CEOs (optional).
  • I have checked the vocabulary, I understand the words, I can pronounce them and use them in spoken interaction.
  • I have checked useful phrases for debating.
  • I might have even taken some notes about the “The Company” (or vocabulary) and I am ready for discussion.