I’ve gotten myself into a pickle! In this lesson, students will discuss the problems that can arise while traveling on vacation. Students will give examples of different situations that travelers might encounter and share their own experiences. The lesson features a video about a trip to Cuba. Students will learn and practice relevant vocabulary and idioms related to the topic. The lesson includes plenty of engaging discussion activities and worksheets designed for both adult and teenage students, ensuring a practical and interactive learning experience.

Lesson Objectives

Listening: Students will watch a video and listen to discussions about the challenges travelers face, such as getting lost or dealing with theft. This will help improve their ability to understand and process spoken English, especially related to travel scenarios.

Speaking: They will share their own travel mishaps and how they navigated those situations. This activity aims to enhance their spoken English by encouraging them to articulate personal experiences and opinions related to travel.

Vocabulary: Key terms and phrases related to travel issues, such as "stranded," "pickpocketed," "lost luggage," and "travel insurance" will be introduced. Understanding these terms will expand their English vocabulary and enable them to talk about travel experiences more effectively.

Homework: Tasks include writing about a personal travel challenge or creating a guide on how to avoid common travel problems. These assignments will help students use new vocabulary and expressions in context, reinforcing their learning and improving their ability to communicate in English about travel.

Video

                                                Have you ever experienced a disaster like getting robbed while on vacation? Watch this video to hear about a travel story to Cuba that went downhill. But remember, don’t let one bad experience change your perspective on people.
												
                                            

Video Transcript

-In Cuba, I got robbed, and it made me question that Nowhere Men motto that people are good. Here's the crazy story. When we landed in Cuba, we knew our weekend trip would be fascinating. We just didn't realize how fascinating.

-If you had told us 10 years ago that we'd be setting foot on Cuba.

-On our taxi ride from the airport to our Airbnb, the cars looked stuck in time, like traveling back to the 1950s. Exactly how we imagined. The view from our Airbnb balcony was beautiful. But after a few short hours in Old Havana, and a very brief night's sleep, a miserable scenario played out. We woke up this morning and realized that when we were gone last night, we were totally robbed. All of our cash, Michael's computer, all of our expensive electronics, gone. Because we had under 48 hours in Cuba, we thought our trip was over. But this was really only the beginning. Before we get back to what happened, here's what we originally planned: an Airbnb food walking tour, a stroll around Old Havana with a local, and some drinks in the evening to cap it off. Everything would be perfect. So, the reality of what happened made things that much worse. Our Airbnb host, Lianet, took us right to the police. The police attended to our case right away. But we spent all day with the police filing the report. They even brought an entire team back to our Airbnb to dust for fingerprints. Stuck in the apartment, we watched our short weekend in Havana pass us by from above. Eventually the police finished their work with us.

-[In Spanish] Terminamos!

-We're free, we're free! The irony of this saga is real. Here's why. Brian, Alex, and I traveled through Latin America for 13 months. And along the way, we found ourselves in some pretty precarious situations, like when we got our car stuck in the mud in Bolivia. But random strangers always came to help us, and we never got robbed once. We considered ourselves pretty lucky. But we still came away with the philosophy that people are good. The cognitive dissonance that I experienced between 13 robbery-free months in Latin America and what happened in one night in Cuba is weird. In the end, here's how I'm making sense of all of this. Yes, I had an objectively terrible experience in Cuba. But that was a result of only one bad guy, while everybody else was amazing and rallied to our support. So believe it or not, I can't wait to get back to Cuba because I still believe that people are good. We're four Americans who got robbed in Cuba.

-Rally on!