Materials: Guidelines

This is a more traditional grammar oriented sentence transformation exercise, with a "friendlier" discussion activity grafted onto it. The target language is quite formal so it may be especially useful for people in business who need to notify others of regulations (in writing).

The sentences have been designed so that some of the sentences provide examples of the sentence patterns required elsewhere in the exercise. This doesn't apply in all cases but it should be enough to give a clue. This is more likely to be effective if the students collaborate in pairs or small groups to produce their answers.

Before attempting the written exercises students should be familiar with at least some of the rule phrases but not necessarily all of them. (allowed / not allowed / should / must / have to) would be good to aim for. It may also be a good idea to either preteach the meanings of the other words, or to suggest that students look in dictionaries. Suggested answers are as follows although others are possible;

1. Rear-seat passengers must wear seat-belts.
2. Junior high-school students should not go to school by bicycle.
3. You are not allowed to ride bicycles through road tunnels.
4. The carrying of some form of identification is mandatory.
5. You are only allowed to carry a bicycle on a train if it is in a special bag.
6. Only members of the police are permitted to carry guns.
7. Taking off your shoes before entering public buildings is optional.
8. Learning to speak English is compulsory for all high-school students.

I have tried to provide a list of rules that might be contentious, depending on where in the world you are teaching. As a further reinforcement activity, you could ask students to change the wording of each of the rules so that they are true for the place where you are.

In the final activity students should use the sentence patterns to write the strictest (or craziest) rules they've been subject to at some time in their lives, then discuss them with other class members. A personal favorite I always mention is the school where (amongst other things)... I was not permitted to ride in the elevator with a student... and ...saying "cheerio" at the end of class was mandatory (never "goodbye").

You have a choice of two different methods of getting this handout to your printer. It all depends on whether your computer has "Adobe Acrobat Reader" installed. If it has, then this would be the recommended method for printing out the worksheet. Try selecting the "PDF (Adobe Acrobat)" link below. If all goes well, a new application window should appear including a print button, which when selected will print out one copy.

If, on the other hand you do not have "Adobe Acrobat" select the "HTML (web page)" link below. (Also, this method is recommended for users of Netscape Navigator, which seems to have trouble interacting with the Acrobat program like this.) If all goes well, a new browser window will open, from which you can either click the "print button" on the toolbar or open the "File" menu, select "Print" and then adjust the "Print Dialog Box" to your own preferences.

The final link below is to enable you to print this "instruction page" if you want to. Click on the link, and when the page appears on a new screen you will be able to print it using the browser's "print button" or "file menu". After printing, close the window again so that you can continue to navigate around the site.

For teacher training courses, English courses in Bristol UK and free interactive exercises, visit The Language Project Website.