Modals of Obligation, Necessity and Prohibition: Pictionary!

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Modals of Obligation, Necessity and Prohibition: Pictionary!

This is part of a series of 30 minute lesson plans I have been writing for conversation classes with small groups of teenagers. Each one covers a specific grammar point and features a game to encourage surly teens to use it.

Introduction

Write “rules” on the board. Tell students to tell you all the rules that their school imposes on them and board them all.  Try to elicit the following structures:

Prohibition:

Mustn’t/can’t/not allowed to

You mustn’t run in the classroom. You’re not allowed to use your mobile phones in class. You can’t smoke in school.

Obligation:

Must/have to

You have to study. You have to be at school at 9am. You must bring your gym kit for PE.

Lack of obligation:

Don’t have to (careful with this one, ensure they understand the difference between mustn’t and don’t have to)

You don’t have to come to school on Saturday. Children over 11 don’t have to wear uniform.

 

Once you have brainstormed all the different rules, ask the students this:

Which rules do you follow?

Which rules do you break?

Which rules annoy you the most?

Do any teachers let you break the rules?

 

Pictionary

Print and cut up the handout.

Draw the following picture on the board:

Elicit the prohibition: You mustn’t smoke.

Split the class into teams of 3-4. Tell them they are going to play pictionary. However, some of the rules are a little strange. Give students time to think of a team name and invite the first person from the first team to the board. They have a minute and a half to draw as many rules as they can for their team, for each rule they guess they get 1 point. The winning team is the one that gets the most point after 2-3 rounds. If you run out of rules, get students to come up with new ones for the other teams to draw and guess. Encourage them to make them as strange and difficult as possible.

Here are the rules from the handout:

You mustn’t sleep in your car	You have to wear a helmet
You are not allowed to feed the lions.	You mustn’t touch the dolphin.
You have to switch off your mobile.	You mustn’t play ping-pong when it’s raining.
You have to be in bed at 10pm.	You mustn’t speak during the opera.
You have to wear long trousers.	You’re not allowed to drink in the computer room.
You mustn’t sing to the monkeys.	You’re not allowed to play video games after 11pm.
You have to take your medicine before going to bed.	You’re not allowed to go skiing in the dark.
You mustn’t drink the water.	You have to have a shower before going in the swimming pool.