Do your students say ‘for’ when they mean ‘to’? Do they say things like “I’m learning English for to get a good job” or “I need to go to the supermarket for buy milk.”

Infinitives of purpose are difficult, and it takes time for students to master them - especially Spanish speakers, who are trying to directly translate ‘para’, which doesn’t work in this instance.

The lesson starts with a fun warmer where students try to identify famous shops from their shopping bags - including Zara, El Corte Inglés and Decathlon.

They’ll then review the rules for using "for" and "to," and do targeted practice exercises. As they go through the lesson, there are tons of opportunities to practise speaking, and as a bonus they’ll pick up some shopping vocabulary,

We realise that not everybody knows what Mercadona is, so we’ve made two alternative versions - one with Mexican shops (eg Liverpool and Elektra) and one with Colombian shops (eg Jumbo and Sodimac) for our teaching friends across the water.

We’re excited to share this lesson, and we hope your students find it as useful as ours have!