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Lesson planC260 minsNew. New: checked automatically for level, grammar, facts and originality; a teacher's review is still to come. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.
Gone Are the Days: Fronting and emphasis
Students learn fronting and emphatic structures, like gone are the days and such was, then write a feature article about a place that has changed.
Style · Fronting · Inversion · Emphasis · Shopping
Or download everything as a ZIP (4 PDFs)This lesson plan and its PDFs are free.
Plan at a glance
Aims
- Learn and use 19 words and phrases in 3 sets: Describing rise and decline, A store and its customers, Openers for emphasis
- Read for detail: the end of an era
- Writing task: a feature article
Stages · 60 min
- 5 minLead-in: Pairs talk about style and share ideas with the class.
- 5 minVocabulary: Ex. 1
- 5 minLanguage focus: Go through the grammar notes together and check understanding.
- 10 minAccuracy practice: Ex. 2–3
- 10 minControlled practice: Ex. 4–5
- 10 minReading: Ex. 6
- 15 minWriting: Ex. 7
Printables
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Download all (ZIP, 4 PDFs)Grammar notes
Fronting with inversion
- Fixed patterns: Gone are the days when… · Here comes… · Hidden behind the counter was a small door.
- So + adjective + be + subject + that: So successful was the store that it opened a second branch.
- Such + be + subject + that (be agrees with the subject): Such was the demand that… · Such were the crowds that…
Negative and limiting openers
- Beyond never, hardly and no sooner: Little did they know… · On no account should you… · Only by cutting costs did they survive. · Not until it closed did we realise…
- With only / not until + a clause, the inversion is in the main clause: Only after the fire did the owners realise…
Concession and clefts
- Adjective + as/though + subject + verb: Strange as it may seem, … (= although it may seem strange).
- Clefts can focus on any part of the sentence: It was in 1952 that the store opened. The reason why it closed was rising rents.
Study tips
- These structures are powerful in formal writing and speeches, but one or two per paragraph is enough. Used everywhere, they sound theatrical.
- When you invert, check the auxiliary agrees with the subject that follows it: Such were the crowds, not Such was the crowds.
Glossary
- Describing rise and decline6 items
- A store and its customers7 items
- Openers for emphasis6 items
Complete the exercises, then check your answers.
1
Words for rise and decline
Match each word with its meaning. There is one extra meaning.
Tap an item…
…then its match
2
Key word transformations
Complete the second sentence so that it means the same as the first. Use the word in capitals and between three and six words, including the word given. Do not change the word given.
- a
The days when shoppers queued round the block are gone.
GONE
when shoppers queued round the block.
Use 2–6 words, including the word given.
- b
The demand for the new catalogue was so great that the printers ran out of paper.
SUCH
for the new catalogue that the printers ran out of paper.
Use 2–6 words, including the word given.
- c
The founders had no idea that the store would one day close.
LITTLE
that the store would one day close.
Use 2–6 words, including the word given.
- d
Staff must not, under any circumstances, discuss the closure with customers.
ACCOUNT
discuss the closure with customers.
Use 2–6 words, including the word given.
- e
The store survived only because it cut its prices.
BY
Only did the store survive.
Use 2–6 words, including the word given.
- f
It may seem strange, but the store’s decline began in its most successful year.
STRANGE
, the store’s decline began in its most successful year.
Use 2–6 words, including the word given.
3
Find and correct the mistake
Each sentence has one mistake with word order or agreement. Write the correction.
- a
Little the founders knew that their store would outlive them both.
- b
So successful the store was that it opened a second branch within a year.
- c
Gone the days are when everyone dressed up to go shopping in town.
- d
Such was the crowds at the opening sale that the police had to be called.
- e
On no account customers should be allowed into the stockroom.
- f
Only after the fire the owners realised how much the store meant to the town.
4
One word
Write one word in each gap.
- a
was the queue on the first morning that the doors opened an hour early.
- b
So popular the January sale that the store had to hire extra staff.
- c
Little the staff suspect that the owners were planning to sell.
- d
Only cutting its opening hours could the store stay open.
- e
Strange it may seem, the store was at its busiest in the year it closed.
- f
Not the store had closed did the town realise what it had lost.
- g
The reason the store closed was not competition but rising rents.
- h
On no should the till be left unattended.
- i
Here the last customer of all, carrying the very last bag.
5
What kind of emphasis?
How does each sentence create emphasis? Put each sentence in the right group.
- a
Strange as it may seem, nobody complained.
- b
It was in 1952 that the store first opened.
- c
What surprised me most was the silence.
- d
On no account should you touch the display.
- e
Only by cutting costs did they survive.
- f
Gone are the days of free home delivery.
- g
Little did they know what was coming.
- h
Hidden behind the counter was a small wooden door.
- i
The reason why it closed was rising rents.
6
Read: the end of an era
Read the feature article. Choose the best answer.
Gone are the days when a trip to Harcourt & Lowe was the highlight of a family’s month. For almost a century the department store dominated the high street of the small market town of Calderbridge, and in its heyday, roughly the twenty years after it was rebuilt in 1958, it employed more than four hundred people. So confident were its owners in those years that they added a rooftop tea room, a lending library and, briefly, a small cinema. Such was the store’s reputation that customers travelled from three counties to shop there, and its loyal clientele included, according to local legend, at least one minor member of a European royal family. Little did anyone suspect that the decline, when it came, would be so gradual that nobody could point to the moment it began. It was not a single competitor that undermined the store but a combination of things: an out-of-town shopping centre, rising rents and, later, online shopping. Customer numbers did not collapse; they dwindled, year after year, as the store’s appeal slowly waned. Only in its final decade did the owners attempt a serious response. They modernised the ground floor, closed the tea room and cut staff, but strange as it may seem, the changes seem to have driven away the older customers without attracting younger ones. The store closed its doors last January. The building, a handsome example of post-war design, is due to be demolished next year to make way for flats, although a campaign to save its façade has gathered several thousand signatures. For many in Calderbridge, the closure feels like the end of a bygone era. Nostalgic visitors still stop to photograph the empty windows. Whether a new kind of business will ever flourish in its place, nobody yet knows.
- a
In its most successful period, Harcourt & Lowe
- b
The writer suggests that the store’s decline
- c
According to the article, the number of customers
- d
The changes the owners made in the last ten years
- e
The future of the building is that
- f
The writer’s attitude in the final paragraph is best described as
7
Write: a feature article
Write a feature article about something that has changed or disappeared.
Write a feature article (220–260 words) for a local magazine about a place, business or tradition that was once important but has declined or disappeared (real or imagined). Describe its best years, explain why it declined, and say what has been lost or gained. Use at least four structures for emphasis from this sheet (Gone are the days…, Such was…, So + adjective + was…, Little did…, Only by/after…, Strange as it may seem…, It was … that…). Try to include some of these words: heyday, bygone, dwindle, wane, nostalgic, flourish, clientele, demolish.
Suggested minimum: 220 words
0 words · aim for at least 220
Spotted a mistake in this lesson?· tell us the exercise and item
Revise with a game
This lesson's own words and questions. Play on your own, or in teams on the classroom screen.
- Step UpAnswer the lesson's questions to climb to the top.
- Pair UpMatch the lesson's words to their meanings against the clock.
- SnapA word and a meaning: do they go together? Answer fast.
- Fix ItFind the mistake in each sentence, then correct it.
- Quiz BoardTeams choose questions worth 100 to 500 points.
- Retro arcadeWord Invaders, Word Snake, Word Maze and Word Crossing: classic arcade games with the lesson's words.
Glossary
The 19 words and phrases this lesson teaches, in 3 sets.
Describing rise and decline
- heyday
- the time when someone or something was most successful or popular
- bygone
- belonging to a time in the past that no longer exists
- flourish
- to grow, develop or be very successful
- decline
- a gradual fall in quality, number or importance
- dwindle
- to become gradually smaller in number or amount
- wane
- to become weaker or less important over time
A store and its customers
- department store
- a large shop divided into sections that sell different things
- clientele
- all the customers of a shop, business or restaurant
- nostalgic
- feeling happy and a little sad when you remember the past
- demolish
- to destroy a building completely, usually deliberately
- shoppers
- people who are buying things in shops
- high street
- the main street of a town, where most shops are
- closure
- the permanent end of a business, shop or service
Openers for emphasis
- Strange as it may seem
- fronted adjective + as: 'although it may seem strange'
- Gone are the days
- fronted participle + inversion: 'those days have gone'
- Little did
- negative opener + inversion: 'they did not know at all'
- On no account
- negative opener + inversion: 'in no situation, for no reason'
- Only by
- limiting opener + inversion: 'this was the only way that…'
- Hidden behind
- fronted participle + inversion: puts the place first for effect
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