Inversions of Prohibition – Pictionary

This is an update of my modals of obligation/prohibition lesson plan. This is a fun way to practice the following inversions:

Under no circumstances must you talk in the exam.

On no account should you put your head out the window.

Part 1 – Introduce the structures

Write the following sentences on a piece of paper, cut them up and jumble the words, then give a copy to the students to rearrange in pairs or groups of 3.

You must not speak in the exam.

You must not smoke in school.

The winner is the team who makes the sentences first.

Now elicit what the two sentences express: Prohibition. Now explain that there are two inversion structures we can use to express prohibition in a more formal way.

Model the sentences on the board with the inversion structures, paying particular attention to the way in which the aux verb and subject are inverted and the “not” is removed.

Under no circumstance must/should you speak in the exam.

On no account must/should you smoke in school.

Part 2 – Pictionary

Now split the class into two groups. Tell each group that they need to come up with 10 prohibitions using the two structures as a group and write them on strips of paper, emcourage them to be imaginative and think of crazy prohibitions: Under no circumtances must you sing to the dolphins. To them to work quietly so that the other group doesn’t hear their sentences.

While they work monitor them and correct mistakes.

Now collect in the sentences making sure to keep the two group’s sentences seperate. Now the students play pictionary: 1 volunteer from the first group comes to the board and has 2 minutes to draw as many of the prohibitions written by the other group for their own group to guess. They musn’t speak or write letters. Award 1 point for each sentences they guess correctly.

Let both teams have 2 turns each, the winning team is the one with the most points.