Going cashless: The future of money

Our speaking lessons follow a consistent six-stage structure: warm-up, presentation (with video, images, or reading), controlled practice, free conversation, deeper discussion, and a final homework task to introduce in class.

Lessons come with a printable student worksheet and a teacher version containing notes and answers. For online teaching, we provide an editable Google Slides e-lesson that can be downloaded or exported to PowerPoint.

The purpose of this stage is to activate your students' existing knowledge and prepare them for the lesson's theme.

Activity 1: You will lead a warm-up discussion by asking students questions on the topic of payment methods, gradually narrowing it to the concept of a cashless society.

Activity 2: The students will review a few idioms related to money, guess their meanings, and discuss equivalent idioms in their own languages.

The presentation material for this lesson is a video from The Economist titled “What does a cashless future mean?”.

Activity 3: Students have to match key words or phrases from the video they are about to watch to statements that describe them.

Activity 4: Students watch the video and look for specific details.

Activity 5: Students will consider statements related to digital payments and decide whether they agree, disagree, or partially agree. They will then explain their reasoning.

To reinforce their understanding of the new language or concepts introduced in the lesson, the students will work on a couple of controlled practice activities.

Activity 6: Students complete statements from the video by filling in missing words related to key vocabulary.

Activity 7: Students conduct a survey by interviewing each other about their recent spending habits.

We move into free practice for this stage, where the students apply the language in more open-ended, communicative activities.

Activity 8: In this activity, students will discuss multiple-choice questions. The questions have no clear right or wrong answers, encouraging students to express their opinions and justify their reasoning.

Activity 9: Students will debate whether the government should be allowed to eliminate cash and take complete control over all digital money.

This stage allows students to explore the lesson’s theme in more depth, tackling complex ideas and expressing their thoughts and opinions on related topics.

Activity 10: The students discuss a recent positive news story about the use of mobile money to tackle global poverty, and consider its wider implications for society.

Activity 11: The students will read and discuss a selection of clever jokes related to money and paying for things. They will share their thoughts on the humour and cultural aspects of the jokes.

Finally, we'll encourage students to extend their learning outside of the classroom to reinforce the language and concepts covered during the lesson.

Homework task: Students will write a personal reflective essay about how their use of money has changed over time and how it might change in the future.