Intermediate6 weeks5 lessons
Handling problems on holiday
This course explains how to describe what went wrong using simple past forms. Scenes include lost luggage, a pharmacy visit and changing a booking.
Trips rarely go wrong in big ways, but small problems are common: a bag that stays in Frankfurt, a room booked for the wrong night, a sore throat on day three. These are the moments when learners most want to speak and feel least able to. Stress shrinks vocabulary fast.
Telling a short story in the right order
Describing a problem means talking about the past, so this course introduces the simple past forms you need and no more. We keep the target small: what happened, when it happened and what you would like now. Three short sentences in order are usually enough for a desk clerk or pharmacist to help.
Each lesson ends with a role-play that gets slightly harder. Your teacher, who has worked in tourism, plays a busy member of staff, sometimes helpful and sometimes not, and you practise staying polite while being clear. The complaint lesson also looks at register, because the phrase that sounds firm in English can sound rude in Italian or German.
This course pairs well with our conversation clubs, where you can retell a real travel mishap to other learners and hear how they would have handled it.