Practise describing charts, graphs and trends with these free online Business English activities. Students learn verbs for going up and down, words for speed and size (sharply, gradually, slightly), and the prepositions that often cause mistakes (rose by 10%, fell to 500). The activities are in teaching order and suit B1 to B2 learners preparing to present figures in meetings and reports.
Available Activities
- Up, Down or No Change? Trend Verbs (B1) – Categorise activity: sort verbs like soar, plunge, recover and level off into up, down and no change.
- Describing Trends: Speed and Size (B1) – Sentence match: match words like sharply, gradually, peak and fluctuate to their meanings.
- Describing a Chart: Online Sales (B1/B2) – Cloze activity: complete a description of a sales chart, with a focus on at, from, to, by and of. With word bank | without word bank
- Describing a Chart (B1/B2) – Picture quiz: look at each graph and name the trend, from a steady increase to a sudden drop.
- Describing Trends: Speaking Cards (B1/B2) – Card set: 10 prompts to describe real changes, from coffee prices to the figures students report on at work.
For more workplace phrases, see Business English Functional Language.