What if the government paid every adult a regular sum of money, with no conditions, whether they worked or not? Universal basic income (UBI) has been tested in Finland, Germany, the US and Wales, and the rise of AI has brought it back into the headlines. This lesson looks at what the experiments found and gets students debating whether free money is a good idea. This B1 version explains the idea in simple language, with the key results and arguments.
Level: B1 · Time: 45 to 90 minutes. Pick the activities that suit your class. They work in almost any order.
Lesson Activities
- Warmer: What’s Happening Here? – Reveal the picture tile by tile. Where is it? What is the truck doing? Why would anyone tip 8 million coins outside a parliament?
- Vocabulary: Pre-teach the Key Words – Match 10 words from the text to their meanings before reading (income, unemployed, stressed, critic, tax, lazy, experiment…).
- Reading: Free Money for Everyone? – A graded text with 12 gaps and audio. Choose with a word bank or without a word bank.
- Vocabulary and Ideas: For or Against? – Students sort 14 arguments into “for” and “against” a basic income. Works well before reading (to predict) or after (to review).
- Discussion: Free Money for Everyone? – 10 conversation questions about free money, work, fairness, taxes and AI.
- Speaking: Ranking – You get €1,000 a month for three years. What would you do with it? Students rank nine options, from saving and paying off debts to working less or starting a business, then compare with a partner.
Teacher Tips
- For a shorter lesson, use the warmer, the reading and the discussion cards.
- The reading has audio. Play it after students have tried the gaps, so they can listen and check their answers, or use it as a listening task with stronger groups.
- Language focus: second conditional for imaginary situations (If I got €1,000 a month, I would…). Students use it with the ranking and the discussion cards.
- UBI can be a political topic. The for/against sort and the ranking let students discuss the ideas without having to share their own political views.
- Business English classes: focus on AI, automation and how a basic income could be paid for, for example by taxing tech companies.
- Follow-up: hold a short class debate, or ask students to write a paragraph giving their opinion with reasons.
Teaching a stronger group? Try the B2 version of this lesson.
Photo: Stefan Bohrer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.