Breaking News English

5-speed listening (Level 4)

Zimbabwe's new currency is U.S. dollar

Slowest

Slower

Medium

Faster

Fastest

Try Level 5 | Level 6

MY e-BOOK

See a sample

This useful resource has hundreds of ideas, activity templates, reproducible activities for …

warm-ups

pre-reading and listening

while-reading and listening

post-reading and listening

using headlines

working with words

moving from text to speech

role plays,

task-based activities

discussions and debates

and a whole lot more.

More Listening

20 Questions | Spelling | Dictation

READING:

Zimbabwe's central bank scrapped the country's currency to use the U.S. dollar. The Zimbabwean dollar became worthless because of hyperinflation. This peaked at 500 billion per cent in 2008. Since then, Zimbabweans liked the security of the U.S. dollar. Around 90 per cent of the economy uses the U.S. dollar. People have until September to change their local currency. The exchange rate is one U.S. dollar to 35 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars.

Zimbabwe's old dollar will not disappear. The large number of zeroes on the bills is making them a collector's item. A 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollar note is selling online for US$35. This is over one hundred times more than the 40 U.S. cents the bill is worth. One hundred trillion is one plus 14 zeroes. One Zimbabwean is making money from the old currency by selling it to tourists. He said it was a waste of time to cash it in at a bank.