The robot hotel that fired its robots

ESL Lessons: True Stories

A printable worksheet for story-based English conversation classes.

Difficulty: Intermediate B1

PDF: The robot hotel that fired its robots

Warm-up

Have you ever seen a robot dinosaur? (Yes, I have seen...)

Vocabulary Match

broke down •• help
replaced •• sleeping noise
snoring •• stopped working
realised •• changed
assist •• understood
failed •• couldn't do

Vocabulary Answers

broke downstopped working
replacedchanged
snoringsleeping noise
realisedunderstood
assisthelp
failedcouldn't do

True Story

Listen and fill in the blanks with words from above.

Henn-na Hotel in Japan opened in 2015 as the world's first hotel run mainly by robots. Guests were checked in by robot dinosaurs, and a robot named Churi-chan was placed in every room to ________ with basic tasks like turning on lights and setting alarms.

However, the robots didn't always work well. One man said that his ________ activated Churi-chan during the night, and she kept waking him up, thinking he was giving commands. Other robots ________ to understand guests or ________ completely.

Eventually, the hotel ________ over half of its 243 robots with human staff. It ________ that while robots are interesting, they can't replace good human service.

Henn-na Hotel in Japan opened in 2015 as the world's first hotel run mainly by robots. Guests were checked in by robot dinosaurs, and a robot named Churi-chan was placed in every room to assist with basic tasks like turning on lights and setting alarms.

However, the robots didn't always work well. One man said that his snoring activated Churi-chan during the night, and she kept waking him up, thinking he was giving commands. Other robots failed to understand guests or broke down completely.

Eventually, the hotel replaced over half of its 243 robots with human staff. It realised that while robots are interesting, they can't replace good human service.

Quiz

  1. When did Henn-na Hotel open?
  2. What kind of robots checked in guests?
  3. What was the name of the robot in each room?
  4. How many robots were replaced with human staff?

Quiz Answers (examples)

  1. 2015
  2. Robot dinosaurs
  3. Churi-chan
  4. Over half of the 243 robots

True or False

  1. The hotel was run entirely by robots. T F
  2. Churi-chan helped with basic tasks like setting alarms. T F
  3. The hotel replaced over half of its robots with monkeys. T F

True or False Answers

  1. False
  2. True
  3. False

Conversation

A:Welcome to Henn-na Hotel! I'm your check-in dinosaur.
B:Wow, a dinosaur! This is amazing!
A:Thank you! Do you need help with anything else?
B:Yes, please! Can you tell Churi-chan not to wake me up at night?
A:I'll try, but she can be a bit stubborn!
B:Haha, I hope she listens this time!

Discussion

  1. Have you ever stayed in a hotel?
  2. Would you like a robot to help you in a hotel room? Why or why not?
  3. Do you think robots will replace people in the future?
  4. What job would you like a robot to do for you?
  5. Do you like science fiction movies? What are your favourites?

Further Reading

https://www.wsj.com/articles/robot-hotel-loses-love-for-robots-11547484628

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