Punctuality and Routines: English Listening Practice (Audio)
Taught by Katie Wood — Cambridge CELTA · Cambridge DELTA · Cambridge-accredited Teacher Trainer
Recorded and taught by a team of British and North American English teachers, based in Oxford (UK) and Barcelona (Spain).
In this episode: Eight speakers talk about being late, when they eat and whether they're morning people. Level 2 listening practice with a workbook, 12 minutes 25 seconds.
Nicholas has a system for friends who are always late: if the meeting is at twelve, he tells them eleven thirty. Ronny takes the opposite approach and waits "till the eleventh hour" to start showering and dressing, then turns up five minutes late and hopes nobody minds. This episode is about time — punctuality, when people eat, and whether they come alive in the morning or the evening — and the eight speakers we recorded disagree with each other quite cheerfully.
Check your understanding
Four questions on what is said in the recording. Every answer is in the audio. No sign-up, nothing to buy.
The workbook for this episode has more practice, with answers, and the full transcript. See what’s in the workbook
What you'll hear in this episode
Zapp! English Listening 2.14 is a 12½-minute recording of eight people talking about time in unscripted English. Five speakers say whether they are punctual. Katie and Nicholas then compare the times they eat, get up and go to bed, in a conversation recorded in a park. Finally Ronny, Tom and Hannah say whether they are morning or evening people.
The first task asks a simple question — are you punctual? — and the answers get complicated fast. Sandra says she tries, but she can't stand being early, so she keeps putting things off, then rushes, then arrives late anyway. Jesse hates being late and gets flustered if she isn't on time. Nicholas turns punctuality into a point of principle: if you keep someone waiting, "they'll never have those minutes back". One speaker explains that he used to be punctual, but now finds it hard where "time is a bit flexible".
In the second part, Katie and Nicholas sit in a park and admit neither of them knows what time it is. They guess around noon and go from there: lunch at one or one-thirty, breakfast straight after waking at seven-thirty or eight, bed before midnight. Nicholas jokes that if you get up late, "your lunch becomes your breakfast". Katie confesses she's no good at staying up — "I'm a bit of an old lady" — and describes a new apartment where the neighbours are up at five, doing dishes and slamming doors.
The last section asks whether you're a morning or an evening person. Ronny repeats a friend's theory that you peak at the hour you were born, then admits she is "a vegetable from eight o'clock on". Hannah can't decide at all and settles on being a "middle of the day person".
Quick facts
Zapp! English Listening 2.14, Time, is a free English listening lesson at intermediate level (B1). It runs 12 minutes 25 seconds and has three listening tasks and eight speakers, with each task set and answered in the recording. The workbook, with the full transcript and extra exercises, is part of the €39 all-in-one pack.
| Episode | 2.14 |
| Title | Time |
| Pack | Listening 2 |
| Level | 2 |
| Duration | 12 minutes 25 seconds |
| Workbook | Included in the all-in-one pack |
What you'll learn
Zapp! English Listening 2.14 trains you to judge what speakers really do, not just what they say about themselves, when they talk about being punctual. It also gives you plenty of practice with approximate times, such as "around one or one-thirty", and a model for asking and answering short questions about your own daily routine.
The useful skill here is listening past the claim to the evidence. Ronny opens with "I'm very punctual person" and then adds a five-to-ten-minute grace period, an admission that she starts getting ready at the last moment, and a promise not to keep you waiting very long. The task answer counts her as not punctual — and working out why trains you to weigh what a speaker actually does against what they say about themselves. Sandra does the same thing in miniature, ending her turn by correcting herself: "sometimes I'm on time, but I'm generally late. No I'm not...punctual."
You'll also collect a lot of approximate time language, which is how people really talk about their days: around seven-thirty eight o'clock, maybe one or one-thirty, about eleven, eleven thirty, before midnight. Notice how often the times come wrapped in hedges — usually, generally, I tend to, kind of depending on — and how rarely anyone gives an exact figure.
The park conversation is a good model for talking about your own routine: Katie and Nicholas ask each other short questions ("What time do you usually eat?", "And what time do you go to bed?") and answer with a time plus a reason.
Vocabulary from the workbook
- putting things off (phrasal verb) – delaying, putting things back in time until later. Sandra uses it to explain why she ends up rushing: she can't bear to arrive early, so she delays.
- flustered (adjective) – not calm, nervous because you don't have enough time. Jesse says she has to be somewhere on time "otherwise I get really flustered".
What's in the workbook
The PDF workbook follows the audio task by task. You get the question for each listening section, the full transcript of every speaker, and the answers explained rather than just listed — the note on task one, for example, walks through why two of the five speakers count as always punctual and the others don't.
After the main tasks there are extra listening questions with answers: two reasons speakers give for not being punctual, what changes the time Katie eats dinner and goes to bed, and whether Hannah finds it harder to get up during the week or at weekends. Then comes a guess-from-context vocabulary exercise, where you decide the word class of four expressions taken straight from the recording — rush, the eleventh hour, consistent and peak — and match them to definitions, before checking against the answer key. There's also a short glossary.
This workbook is part of the Zapp! English all-in-one pack, which includes the workbooks for every episode we've made, for €39.
Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39
Common questions
Is the audio scripted?
The English conversations in Zapp! English Listening 2.14 are unscripted: the speakers are answering a question or chatting, with all the hesitations and self-corrections that come with that. Only the teaching sections, which set up each task and give the answers, are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.
What level is this episode?
Zapp! English Listening 2.14 is a Level 2 episode from the Listening 2 pack, which is intermediate (B1), and runs 12 minutes 25 seconds. The topic, daily routines and times of day, is familiar, but the speech is at natural speed and unedited.
Do I need the workbook to use the audio?
The audio for Zapp! English Listening 2.14 is free and works without the workbook, because the tasks and their answers are read out in the recording. The workbook helps most when a speaker says something you can't catch: it has the transcript, so you can check instead of guessing.
How should I work through it?
To work through Zapp! English Listening 2.14, answer each task question on a first listen, then replay each speaker and write down every time expression you hear. Finish by answering the same three questions yourself: are you punctual, when do you eat, and are you a morning person?
How do I get the workbook?
The workbook for Zapp! English Listening 2.14 comes with the all-in-one pack, which costs €39 and covers every episode in the series, not just this unit.
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