When prices keep rising

Olia | Oct 31, 2025Oct 31, 2025

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this ESL lesson on inflation are to:

• talk about inflation from different perspectives;
• practise nominalization and vocabulary for discussing rising prices;
• watch a video excerpt about a virtuous inflation cycle.

In this lesson, students share their interest in economic and financial news, read a short text about inflation and practise nominalization. They discuss experiences and opinions about price increases, talk about myths surrounding inflation and watch a video excerpt explaining why prices change. Students say whether they agree with comments, explain their views and explore words and phrases to talk about inflation. They also talk about the decisions of governments, businesses and consumers when facing inflation.

WARM-UP AND NOMINALIZATION

This ESL lesson on inflation starts with a warm-up. Students look at imaginary economic and financial article headlines (e.g. Slower exports lead to lower GDP growth). They discuss whether some statements (e.g. I stay up to date with economic news) are true for them. Afterwards, students read a text describing inflation and its effects without mentioning it. They guess the economic concept. Students then read a grammar tip about nominalization. They look at an example and rewrite the rest of the text from the previous task by changing verbs to nouns. Moving on, students discuss questions about the causes and impact of inflation. After that, they read comments about myths mentioned in the previous exercise (e.g. Inflation is inherently negative). Students turn words into nouns using nominalization.

VIDEO AND VOCABULARY

In this part of the ESL lesson on inflation, students watch a video excerpt explaining the concept of a virtuous inflation cycle. First, they try to describe the concept using an image. Students then watch the video and check their ideas. Following that, they look at different comments on the video and say which of them they agree with. Students explain their reasons. Moving on, they choose the best synonyms for words and phrases related to inflation (e.g. cap, hold off, offset) in varied statements (e.g. They might try to offset rising costs with subsidies). Afterwards, students say whether each sentence describes governments, businesses or consumers during inflation. Next, they complete sentences about attitudes during inflation with the vocabulary from the previous task. Finally, students agree or disagree with the statements from the last exercise. They give reasons.

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This ESL lesson on inflation also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students imagine they are a financial analyst, examine quarterly spending and write recommendations with the target vocabulary from the lesson. The task is available in the teacher’s version of the worksheet. You can print it and hand it out to your students. It’s also included in the e-lesson plan.

WORKSHEETS

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