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.
“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!” If someone says this to you, they’re saying that it’s important to make the best of a difficult situation. More and more people are taking this idea to heart in our current economy and finding creative ways to earn money.
A serious entrepreneur thinks carefully about what the community wants or needs. It could be as basic as feeding people’s pets or buying their groceries. Or perhaps someone has an idea for an invention that will simplify people’s lives. If you want to be self-employed and find success, your product must be one of a kind.
Listen in on Marni and Mason’s conversation about being in business for yourself in this English lesson about cottage industries.
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.
Mason: So, I’m really excited to go to the local flea market this weekend because a friend of mine has a booth there. She does all these hand-crafted goods.
Marni: Oh! So, would you call it a cottage industry?
Mason: I suppose so. I mean, she does run it out of her house. And it’s kind of just self-employed. She doesn’t have anyone else doing it.
Marni: Do you feel like that’s a trend lately maybe with the economy being what it is? People are just doing it for themselves. DIY little companies out of their homes.
Mason: Definitely. Added to that is what she does: She finds old clothes and refurbishes them and fixes them up. She only picks the nice stuff. That, I think, of all of the cottage industries has been the most easy to jump into from a recession perspective. People are selling their old stuff, and then other people are going to go buy it and resell it. Right?
Marni: Yeah, that’s pretty great. That’s kind of recycling and the whole cycle of just reusing things. I like it.
Mason: But I really respect… it takes a lot of dedication to do something like that by yourself and keep it together.
Marni: Absolutely. Being self-employed can be scary, but good for her for trying to do it.
Grammar Point
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Discussion
Mason is looking forward to seeing his friend at the flea market. She sells hand-crafted things that she makes in her home. Mason respects his friend for working hard to make her business a success.
Marni points out that there seem to be more and more people starting their own businesses. She wonders if the economy has something to do with it. Marni likes that Mason’s friend recycles old clothing because she believes that it’s smart to reuse things. She admires Mason’s friend for being self-employed because it can be a little scary.
There are fewer jobs today than ten years ago, so people are doing their best to start their own businesses. Often this means that a company has only one employee—the owner! You have to work hard to make a new business succeed. It must feel great when that finally happens.
Have you ever started your own business? What was it, and did you succeed? If you could start a business tomorrow, what would it be?
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