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1.1 Reading – MY WISH!
PRE-READING
ACTIVITY
Work with your partner and try to answer the following questions.
Why have you decided to become a cosmetologist?
Where would you like to work after you finish school?
Mia obviously wants to work in her own beauty salon. Why do you think she wants that?
Would you like to be the owner of a beauty salon yourself one day? Why?
WHILE-READING ACTIVITY
Mia has had a special wish what to become when she grows up.
While reading about it:
underline all the unknown words,
try to guess from the context what they mean.
My Wish!
Mia first got this wonderful idea of opening a beauty salon one day when she was still a little girl. While
all her friends were playing with dolls, she was mixing some ingredients she had found on the ground
and pretended she was making a beauty cream. Everyone thought she was pretending to be a chef. Until
college she had almost forgotten about her dream of being a beauty therapist, but she reconsidered the
idea again after finishing her studies.
Mia decided to fulfil her dream and started saving money for the salon. Last week she finally got her
loan application approved at the bank and now she is ready to invest into her business.
She wants to have three big, beautifully decorated rooms. One room will serve as a waiting room and
reception. She wishes to put a comfortable sofa in it and a counter desk with a computer. This room will
lead to the second one in which therapies and treatments will be performed. It will contain all the
necessary equipment needed for a therapy. She has already decided that it would be furnished in dark
violet colour. She read that this colour has a relaxing effect on the client and besides, it is also very
trendy nowadays. The third room will be used as storage for all the products.
If the business goes well, she thinks she will expand it and also start offering other treatments, such as
massages. Someday she may even include a sauna and create her very own little spa centre.
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POST-READING ACTIVITY
Think about your own wish. Write a short paragraph about what you wish to do professionally.
Think of the previous discussion and what Mia has written. Include the following points:
explain what career you want to pursue,
why you want to do this kind of work for a living,
what your dream job would be like.
1.2 Grammar – WHO IS MIA?
Your dream may partly come true now that you are helping Mia in the beauty salon
...............................
(NAME)
. In order to be able to successfully work with her, you need to get to know
her a bit better.
Read some facts about her and fill in the missing gaps with the most appropriate forms of the verbs
in brackets by using Present Simple or Present Continuous. If necessary, look at the grammar
section.
Mia ............................... (be) 25 years old. She ............................... (live) in Celje. She
............................... (study) cosmetology at The Faculty of Pharmacy.
Every day she ............................... (go) to the library of the faculty to study there. She
............................... (wake up) at 7 o’clock, ............................... (eat) breakfast and
............................... (take) a bus to school.
Actually she ............................... (just finish) her diploma thesis now and she will soon have a
degree. Tomorrow she ............................... (meet) her mentor at 7 a.m. to discuss the final details of
her work, which is why she has to wake up earlier than usual, because the bus ...............................
(leave) the station already at 6.30.
The topic of the thesis she ............................... (research) is connected to opening a beauty salon and
its management. She ............................... (be) really interested in this process and managing a beauty
salon ............................... (represent) a real challenge for her. This is also why she probably
............................... (want) to own a salon herself.
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1.3 Grammar – PLANS FOR THE FUTURE.
Read what Mia is planning for the future and insert the most appropriate forms of the verbs in
brackets into the gaps by using Present Simple or Present Continuous. Be careful about stative
verbs. If in doubt, check the grammar section.
Besides her degree, Mia ............................... (also think) about continuing her studies and signing up
for a Master’s Degree in this field. In Slovenia The Higher School of Applied Sciences
............................... (offer) a MA programme in cosmetology, but Mia ............................... (have) a
wish to study abroad.
But before she ............................... (do) that she will work for a while, as she ...............................
(believe) it ............................... (be) necessary to work first. When you ............................... (work)
for a period of time you ............................... (also gain) more practical knowledge and
............................... (get) more experience.
This ............................... (enable) you to get to
know the work in the salon better. It also
............................... (help) you to decide what
field you ............................... (wish) to be
specialised in and consequently also which fields
of studies you ............................... (prefer). For
this reason, it ............................... (seem)
to make
more sense to work in a salon for a few years
first and only later continue with the studies.