3. What are your favourite activities when you have free time?

I My friends and me

look forward to can't give up feel like enjoy can't help

doing nothing eating chocolate laughing, relaxing and having a good time. playing sports watching videos. playing computer games hanging around the city. browsing the net outing Add some other variants.

II. Entertainment.

During the past hundred years, the radio, the cinema and now the television have made very great changes in the entertainment with which people fill in their free time.

A hundred years ago people know how to entertain themselves much better than they do it now. When a group of people gathered together, they talked, played cards or other games, read aloud to each other, or went out shooting or walking together. Most people could sing a little, or play some musical instrument, so at a party the guests entertained each other.

Conversation was an art; amusing conversation could keep people happy for hours.

As for games, such as football, tennis, people played them more often than they do it now. Most of them didn't play very well, but they could amuse themselves and their friends.

Nowadays we are entertained by the professionals. Why listen to your friends singing when you can hear the greatest singer of the world on the radio? Why play football with players who are not very good at it, when you can go by train or car to see some of the best players in your country playing an important match; or if you've got a TV set, just sit comfortably at home and watch the game without going outside at all?

The art of conversation and writing letters is dying. People are becoming more and more lookers and listeners and less and less doers and talkers though it's much better to do something not very well oneself than always to sit and watch others doing it.

1. Answer the questions.

1. How did people entertain themselves in the past?

2. How are we entertained nowadays?

3. What is more interesting: to entertain oneself or to be entertained?

2. Retell the text and say whether people entertain themselves better in the past or nowadays. Give your reasons.

III. Spare time

1. Spare time of a student of a top class at school*

Every day I go to school. I get up early, do homework, and have piano lessons twice a week.

But on weekends I like to do something different. I like to relax. I watch TV or videos. If it rains, I prefer indoor activities: to read books or newspapers, to play chess, draughts or table-tennis, to practice woodcraft, to play records, to write some letters on E-mail, to draw. Besides, I have some duties about the house – to clean the flat, to go shopping, to wash my clothes. Of course, I can cook something but, frankly speaking, I don't like it. The only thing I do well is baking the cake "Prague".

In spring and summer I prefer outdoor activities. I do some gardening, ride a bike, and go roller-skating. I like sports. In summer I swim in our lake and play football or basketball. But best of all I like badminton. I like to go boating too. I don't like fishing and hunting. But ''silent hunt'' is one of my favourite pastimes. I have a lot of pictures taken in different places and different seasons. In winter it's so pleasant to go skating. But I can't stand skiing.

As for my younger sister she likes to knit and sew. She takes an aerobics class on Sundays. She also likes figure skating very much.

During the school year I try to find time to go to the theatre or to the cinema sometimes. Though I can't say that I'm a keen theatre-goer I like comedies and musicals. When speaking about films I like action films, fantasies and horrors. As I can't dance I practically don't go to the disco. I prefer to browse the net on my computer.

But, of course, the greatest part of my time is busy with my lessons, homework, and preparatory courses. As I am in my top class I have to work very hard to get ready for my exams at school and entrance exams to the university. The competition is very hard.