Intro
1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.
2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.
In order to waste money, you have to choose to spend it on something foolish. Time, however, passes whether you’re doing something useful with it or not.
Wasting time isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can be fun. Everyone needs to relax sometimes, and as long as you don’t waste too much time too often, it can be good for you.
If you space out for too long though, it can get you in trouble. You can get behind on your responsibilities. It can also make you tired and you can start to feel bad about yourself.
In this English lesson about time, Sara notices that Jeff doesn’t appear to be too busy at the moment.
Dialog
1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.
2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.
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Sara: What are you doing Jeff?
Jeff: Just wasting time. I don’t feel like doing anything.
Sara: Yeah? What do you do when you waste time?
Jeff: Sit around...watch movies or TV shows that I’ve already seen…peruse the internet…
Sara: Is it relaxing or it is frustrating?
Jeff: I don’t know, it’s kind of frustrating to me because I always want to be doing something, but I don’t have a lot of energy a lot of the time, so that’s when I find myself getting sucked in to that trap.
Sara: Yeah, I know what you mean. I usually like to be really productive, too, but sometimes you just suddenly realize that you’ve been on Facebook for half an hour or something.
Jeff: Oh, yeah, that’s a big one for a lot of people I think.
Sara: It is! I’ve heard you can get some blockers to kick you off after a certain amount of time.
Jeff: I’ll look into this. Stuff like that, I get frustrated with myself when that happens, but I feel like sometimes having a moment to just do nothing is healthy in a way. You just need to balance that out with productivity.
Sara: It’s true, like a Sunday morning when you can just sort of amble around the house, walk around the house and…
Jeff: ...space out.
Sara: Yeah.
Grammar Point
Go Super to learn "Phrasal Verbs" from this lesson
Quizzes
Lesson MP3
The iTEP® test
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Discussion
Like almost everyone, Jeff wastes time occasionally. Sometimes he watches boring TV shows he has seen before or looks at the internet. Other times he just spaces out.
Sara asks Jeff if wasting time is fun for him or frustrating. He says it can be frustrating because he likes to be productive, but that it’s healthy to take a break and waste a little time sometimes. Sara agrees. She likes to amble around the house on Sunday mornings.
How do you waste time? How does it make you feel? Do you wish you wasted less time?
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