1. Oral Fluency Sample. Corporate English learners, 2013
This is a testing instrument designed to assess your developing abilities with English
at the start of the Webilang course English for Corporate learners 2013-2014. As
outlined by your instructor, make a digital audio recording, reading aloud the
following text and answering the questions after the text.
Do not prepare or rehearse this text; use several moments to orient yourself with
the text, and then begin reading. It is not expected that you will read the presented
text materials perfectly;
Do not “agonize” over word elements you do not know or repeat words or phrase—
one measure of your oral fluency is the total time taken to complete the reading.
At the conclusion of your readings: in your own words, describe yourself as a
language and culture learner. Speak freely about your language learning process and
goals as a language and culture learner.

2. Part 1
Read the text and answer the questions
Ikea group is halting its investments into Russia citing bureaucratic hurdles. The
Swedish company has decided to put brakes on its development in the country due
to what it described “the unpredictable character of administrative procedures in
some regions." A store in the city of Samara was supposed to open in 2007 and has
been postponed 8 times.
Ikea will finish off ongoing projects but it will not start building new ones. So far
the company has invested about $4 billion into Russia. Russian officials said they
were unaware of any problems and would investigate. Per Kaufmann, IKEA’s global
director for Russia and CIS, he told Russia Today about the problems the company
faces:
“We have problems in Samara where we have shopping central IKEA stores
which we believe are ready but we are not getting the promise. So, from that point
of view you can say that, well, I think, the investment climate has gone down, but I
don’t believe that has got anything to do with the crisis... It’s clear that if they are
unable to open it up, then the board will also ask the question: do we dare to invest
in other new centres, because if the same thing is happening there, then you are
putting in money but you can’t sort of, say, sell.”
Questions:
1. Why has Ikea decided to stop investments into Russia?
2. What will be the consequence of Ikea’s decision to halt investments into
Russia?

3. Part 2
Now, at the conclusion of your reading: In your own words, describe yourself as a
language and culture learner. Say as much as you can, speaking for at least one to
two minutes.
How much speaking and listening practice in English do you have?
How comfortable are you in speaking English and understanding native speakers?
What are your goals in language and culture learning?
Which language learning activities or classes do you enjoy the most?
Which activities do you learn the most from?
Be as specific and detailed as you can.