When life gives you lemons

Inna | Dec 24, 2025Dec 23, 2025

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this lesson on optimism and pessimism are to:

• talk about optimistic, pessimistic and realistic viewpoints;
• discuss how to keep a positive mindset when things get difficult;
• watch part of a video about a store owner who creatively deals with a situation.

In this lesson, students reflect on different ways of seeing situations, share their opinions and explore a quote about optimism and pessimism. They discuss how each mindset reacts to situations, watch a part of a video (to 01:25) about a shop owner’s creative reaction to vandalism and talk about how people stay positive in hard scenarios. Students can also do an extra vocabulary task where they review useful phrases (e.g. keep a positive attitude, expect the worst, go wrong) for the lesson.

WARM-UP AND DISCUSSION

Before this lesson on optimism and pessimism starts, students can do an extra vocabulary activity. They match phrases for handling difficult situations (e.g. focus on, hope for the best, deal with reality) with their definitions. Then, students decide which sentences are about optimists, pessimists or realists. After that, they do a warm-up activity. Students discuss questions exploring attitudes toward life. Next, they choose three sentences about optimism, pessimism and realism (e.g. It is/isn’t easy to be a realist.). Students complete them with one of the options and explain why they think so. Afterwards, they read a quote about optimism and pessimism. Students share their thoughts and give examples. 

VIDEO AND MORE DISCUSSION

In this part of this lesson on optimism and pessimism, students look at different challenging situations (e.g. your company introduces a new AI tool) and choose four. They decide what an optimist, a pessimist and a realist would say or think in each of them. Afterwards, students watch a video where a store owner creatively responds to an act of vandalism. First, they read comments about the situation and guess what happened. Then, students watch part of the video and check their ideas. After that, they discuss questions about attitudes toward problems. Then, students use their creativity. They discuss how they could deal with various situations (e.g. you accidentally delete an important document) to turn them into opportunities. 

WORKSHEETS

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