TEACHER’S NOTES

Infinitives of purpose
by Jill Hadfield

Level: Advanced
train – to – get to the airport on time – to catch the plane –
fun with grammar tEACHER’S NOTES

Target age: Secondary / adult to – go to Wellington – to – go to a meeting – to – discuss

Time needed: 20 minutes
Grammar objective: to practise using positive
and negative infinitives of purpose
Materials: one set of domino cards per team
Summary: This accuracy-based team
competition for small groups is based on the
game of dominoes and practises infinitives of
purpose: to, in order to, so as to and negatives
so as not to and in order not to.
Procedure
1. Cut up the domino cards for the students in
preparation for the lesson.
2. Put students into teams of three or four to play
the game.
3. Give each team one set of domino cards.
• The first player takes the starter card
I put my alarm on and lays it down.
• The same player then distributes the rest of the
cards equally between the team members without
looking at them.
• The second player (to the left of the first player)
must then find a card that follows after the starter
card, for example:
I put my alarm on in order to
our new project – in order to – finalize the contract – but –
my alarm didn’t go off – so I got a taxi – so as not to – miss
the train – but – we were too late for the train – so I took
the taxi all the way to the airport – in order not to miss the
plane – but – the taxi broke down – so I hitched a lift – to
get to the airport – but – I missed my plane – so I got the
next one – to – try to get to part of the meeting – but –
the next plane was delayed – so I decided to take a taxi in
Wellington – in order to – try and get to the meeting – but
– there was a long queue – so I shared a taxi with the man
in front of me – but – the taxi broke down – so we ended up
walking – to – get into town – but – I was too late for the
meeting – so the man I shared the taxi with invited me to
dinner – to – cheer me up – so I missed the meeting – but –
that’s how I met my future husband!
Extension
Each of the teams could make up their own domino
sentences to challenge the other teams and the game
could be played again using these domino cards. Each
team would need to create sentences containing the
same number of domino cards.
This is a good exercise to test their understanding of
infinitives of purpose. Alternately, the students could
try to come up with as many logical variations of the
sentence as possible.

• The next player finds a card to follow the card

that the second player chose, such as:
get up early

• The game continues clockwise around the teams

until all the cards have been used. If a player
cannot find a suitable card to lay down, he/she
can miss a turn.

• The team with the longest sentence wins

the game.

Note: The domino cards are arranged in the order

they should be placed to make the longest sentence,
but many other combinations are possible.
Key:
I put my alarm on – in order to – get up early – so as not to
– miss the bus – so as to – get to the station for the 8am
D •
TE DE E
SI A L
EB LO B
W N IA

© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2011

M W P
O DO O
FR BE C
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GRAMMAR & VOCABULARY / Fun with grammar / Infinitives of purpose

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 TG or WORKSHEET
CUT-OUTS
Title
Infinitives of purpose
Author
by Jill Hadfield

Domino cards
subject
fun with title

#
I put my alarm on in order to get up early

so as not to miss the bus so as to

get to the station to get to the airport

for the 8am train on time
grammar CUT-OUTs

to catch the plane to go to Wellington

to go to a meeting to

discuss our in order to finalize the contract

new project

but my alarm didn’t so I got a taxi

go off

so as not to miss the train but

we were too late so I took the in order not to

for the train taxi all the way miss the plane
to the airport

but the taxi broke down so I hitched a lift

D •
TE DE E
SI A L
EB LO B
W N IA
M W P

© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2011

O DO O
FR BE C
O

GRAMMAR & VOCABULARY / Fun with grammar / Infinitives of purpose

T
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CA
 TG or WORKSHEET
CUT-OUTS
Title
Infinitives of purpose
Author
by Jill Hadfield

Domino cards
subject
fun with title

#
to get to but I missed my plane
the airport

so I got the next one to try to get to part

of the meeting

but the next plane so I decided to take

was delayed a taxi in Wellington
grammar CUT-OUTs

in order to try and get to but

the meeting

there was a so I shared a taxi

long queue with the man in but
front of me

the taxi broke down so we ended to

up walking

get into town but I was too late for

the meeting

so the man I shared

the taxi with invited to cheer me up
me to dinner

so I missed but that’s how I met my

the meeting future husband!
D •
TE DE E
SI A L
EB LO B
W N IA
M W P

© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2011

O DO O
FR BE C
O

GRAMMAR & VOCABULARY / Fun with grammar / Infinitives of purpose

T
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H
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