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Who decided a week is 40 hours? Be required to, be entitled to and be exempt from

This B2 ESL lesson plan teaches be required to and be entitled to through the Fair Labor Standards Act and the 40-hour work week.

Grammar
Be required to and be obliged to + base form for duties, be entitled to for rights and be exempt from for exceptions, and not required vs not allowed.
Topic
How the 1938 law set overtime pay after 44, 42 and then 40 hours a week, with words such as overtime, time and a half and punch in.
Activities
An explainer to read, an interview with a historian and a nurse's voice memo, self-checking drills, a new-job chat, a rights-or-duties sort and a debate wheel.

What's inside

  1. Chapter 1Warm-up: nine to five, or not?

    • PictureUnlock
    • Open a box and answerOpen the boxUnlock
    • Study the words: hours, pay and rulesVocabularyTry it
    • Look at the pictures and choose the wordChoose by pictureUnlock

  2. Chapter 2Let's read: forty, but not a limit

    • Look at the picture: an old factory wallPictureUnlock
    • Read Isaiah's explainer on The Why DeskArticleUnlock
    • Read and mark true or falseTrue or falseUnlock
    • Read again and choose the correct answerQuizUnlock
    • Match the paragraphs and the headingsMatchUnlock

  3. Chapter 3Let's listen: four days or forty hours?

    • Listen to Isaiah and NanetteListeningTry it
    • Transcript, for the teacherUnlock
    • Listen and choose the correct answerQuizUnlock
    • Listen to the Reader's Rebuttal: Antonia's voice memoListeningUnlock
    • Transcript, for the teacherUnlock
    • Listen and mark true or falseTrue or falseUnlock

  4. Chapter 4Grammar: Am I entitled to overtime?

    • Study the scheme: rules, rights and exceptionsGrammar schemeTry it
    • Choose the correct optionChoose the optionUnlock
    • Fill in the gaps: use the words in bracketsFill in the gapsTry it
    • Fill in the table: say the same rule in a formal wayFill in the tableUnlock
    • Choose the correct answer: what does it mean?QuizUnlock
    • Put the words in the correct orderUnjumbleUnlock

  5. Chapter 5Let's talk: the rules of a new job

    • Choose the right replies: Emil's new jobChatTry it
    • Sort the words into the correct columns: a right or a duty?Sort into columnsUnlock
    • Spin the wheel and answer: work, rules and timeSpin the wheelUnlock

  6. Chapter 6Homework

    • Match the words and the meaningsMatchUnlock
    • Unscramble the wordsAnagramUnlock
    • Fill in the gaps with the lesson's wordsFill in the gapsUnlock
    • Find the matching pairs: words and meaningsMemory gameUnlock
    • Choose the correct option: new sentencesChoose the optionUnlock
    • Fill in the gaps: more rules, use the words in bracketsFill in the gapsUnlock
    • Choose the correct answer: which sentence is correct?QuizUnlock
    • Put the words in the correct order: new sentencesUnjumbleUnlock
    • Choose the correct option: a page from Emil's handbookChoose the optionUnlock
    • Drag the words into the gaps: Isaiah answers AntoniaDrag and dropUnlock

34 exercises in 6 chapters. Start a 7-day free trial to open all of them, copy any part into your own lessons, and teach the lesson live.

Work vocabulary

12 words and phrases from the lesson, each with a picture and audio in edio.

+9 more with pictures and audio in the lessonMore words

  • overtime
  • time and a half
  • minimum wage
  • workweek
  • punch in
  • burnout
  • productivity
  • four-day week
  • handbook

Grammar: formal rules: be required to, be entitled to, be exempt from

Laws, contracts and job handbooks often use more formal words than must or can. They say who is required to do something, who is entitled to something and who is exempt from a rule, and the story of the 1938 law on working hours needs all three. Learners learn each phrase with the word that follows it: a base form, a noun or an -ing form.

Formal rules: required to, entitled to, exempt from

Laws, contracts and handbooks use these phrases for duties (what you must do), rights (what you can get) and exceptions (who the rule doesn't apply to).

Duties: required to and obliged to + base form

A law, a contract or a handbook makes you do it: Employers are required to pay overtime. Only be changes with the person and the tense: I am required to, she is required to, they were obliged to.

Duties, rights and exceptions

FormWhat it meansExample
be required to + base formA rule or law says you must.Employers are required to pay overtime.
be obliged to + base formYou must, by law or duty (formal).In 1938, covered employers were obliged to pay at least 25 cents an hour.
be entitled to + nounYou have a right to get it.After October 1940, covered workers were entitled to overtime after 40 hours.
be entitled to + base formYou have a right to do it.You are entitled to take a 15-minute break.
be exempt from + noun or -ingThe rule doesn't apply to you.Farm workers were exempt from the rule. Managers are exempt from punching in.
be allowed to + base formYou have permission (a reminder).Students are allowed to punch in on Nanette's old clock.

Every person

Personbe required tobe entitled tobe exempt from
II am required to sign in.I am entitled to a break.I am exempt from the fee.
youYou are required to sign in.You are entitled to a break.You are exempt from the fee.
heHe is required to sign in.He is entitled to a break.He is exempt from the fee.
sheShe is required to sign in.She is entitled to a break.She is exempt from the fee.
it (the store)It is required to keep records.It is entitled to a refund.It is exempt from the fee.
weWe are required to sign in.We are entitled to a break.We are exempt from the fee.
theyThey are required to sign in.They are entitled to a break.They are exempt from the fee.

Rights: entitled to + a noun or a base form

Be entitled to means you have a right to something. After entitled to, use a noun or a base form: Covered workers are entitled to overtime. You're entitled to take a break. Never entitled for.

The right little word

Say entitled to (never entitled for) and exempt from (never exempt of or exempt to). After required to and obliged to, use the base form: required to pay (never required paying, never obliged for paying). After entitled to, use a noun (entitled to overtime) or a base form (entitled to take a break). After exempt from, use a noun or -ing (exempt from paying).

Exceptions: exempt from + a noun or -ing

Be exempt from says a rule doesn't apply to someone: Sailors and farm workers were exempt from the overtime rule. After from, a verb takes -ing: Managers are exempt from punching in. Never exempt of or exempt to.

  • In 1938, employers in covered industries were required to pay at least 25 cents an hour.
  • Employers were obliged to pay overtime for hours over the limit.
  • Sailors and farm workers were exempt from the overtime rule.
  • After October 24, 1940, covered workers were entitled to overtime after 40 hours.
  • Today, no adult is required by the federal act to stop at 40 hours.
  • “Am I entitled to overtime?” Isaiah asked.

Questions and short answers

Questions move be to the front, with no do: Are you entitled to overtime? – Yes, I am. Is she required to work on Sundays? – No, she isn't. With who as the subject, the order stays: Who is exempt from the rule?

QuestionShort answer
Are you entitled to overtime?Yes, I am. / No, I'm not.
Is she required to work on Sundays?No, she isn't.
Who is exempt from the rule?Managers are.
What are we entitled to?Two free movie tickets a month.

Not required, not allowed and supposed to

Not required to means it isn't necessary; not allowed to means it's against the rules: We aren't required to stay after six lets you stay, and We aren't allowed to stay after six doesn't. Be supposed to is only what people expect.

Not required or not allowed?

not required to: it isn't necessary (your choice)

  • You aren't required to wear a tie. (You can if you like.)
  • We aren't required to stay after six.
  • She isn't required to punch in.

not allowed to: it's against the rules

  • You aren't allowed to smoke in the building.
  • We aren't allowed to stay after six.
  • Employees aren't allowed to punch in for a friend.

Stronger than supposed to

Be supposed to is what people expect: We're supposed to take a break at noon (but we often don't). Be required to and be obliged to are formal: a law, a contract or a handbook says so. The active verbs work too: The law requires employers to pay overtime. The law entitles workers to overtime. You'll also hear be obligated to: it means the same.

Common mistakes

Four slips use the wrong word after the phrase: entitled for a break, exempt of the rule, required paying, obliged for paying. Each phrase keeps its own preposition: entitled to, exempt from, required to pay, obliged to pay.

  • You are entitled for a break.

    You are entitled to a break.

    entitled + to

  • Managers were exempt of the rule.

    Managers were exempt from the rule.

    exempt + from

  • Employers are required paying overtime.

    Employers are required to pay overtime.

    required + to + base form

  • Employers were obliged for paying overtime.

    Employers were obliged to pay overtime.

    obliged + to + base form

More lessons on this grammar: Modal verbs lessons and exercises

Try the be required to exercises

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What's in the lesson

  • 19 auto-checked exercises
  • 6 games
  • 1 article
  • 1 grammar scheme
  • 1 set of word cards
  • 2 audio clips
  • 2 pictures
  • 2 transcripts

The main objectives of this lesson are to:

  • state a duty in formal English: Employers are required to pay overtime. In 1938, covered employers were obliged to pay at least 25 cents an hour.
  • name a right with a noun or a base form: Covered workers are entitled to overtime. You're entitled to take a 15-minute break.
  • say who a rule doesn't cover: Sailors and farm workers were exempt from the rule. Managers are exempt from punching in.
  • tell what isn't necessary from what is forbidden: You aren't required to wear a tie against You aren't allowed to smoke in the building.
  • ask about the rules of a job: Am I entitled to overtime? Who is exempt from the rule? Are we required to work on holidays?

Lesson 5 opens Work-life balance, unit 2 of English B2.2 · Culture and Society. It takes learners past be supposed to from B1.1 lesson 14 and be allowed to from A2.2 lesson 23, into the language of laws and handbooks. Lesson 6 moves on to present participle clauses. A law that says what employers must pay and who it leaves out calls for exactly these phrases.

Students open boxes of questions about working hours, overtime pay and work messages on weekends, then learn twelve words, from require and entitle to burnout and four-day week, with pictures and audio. They read Isaiah's explainer on who decided the 40-hour week, then hear him argue with Nanette, a labor historian, about a four-day week, and Antonia, a nurse from Ohio, defend her twelve-hour shifts; both are AI-voiced. The grammar chapter has the scheme and five self-checking exercises, among them a table that rewrites each rule formally. In the speaking chapter, students answer Emil's questions about his new job in a chat, sort rights from duties and spin a wheel of debate questions.

All ten homework tasks check themselves: a match, an anagram, gaps with the lesson's words and a memory game; then form choices, gaps with words in brackets, a quiz on the correct sentence and word order; then a page of Emil's employee handbook with forms to choose and Isaiah's answer to Antonia with words to drag in.

Grammar:
be required to · be entitled to · be exempt from · be obliged to · formal obligation and rights
Topic:
the Fair Labor Standards Act · the 40-hour week · Frances Perkins · overtime pay · working hours · work-life balance · The Why Desk

Teaching tips

  • Start with a handbook rule: write All employees must punch in on the board. Students say it formally (All employees are required to punch in), then say who might be exempt and what new staff are entitled to.
  • Ask what a normal workweek is before the reading, and whether a law sets a limit. Students then read to check: the 1938 law set overtime pay after 44, 42 and then 40 hours, with no ban on longer weeks.
  • Play the interview twice: first for who thinks a four-day week would work, then for every required, entitled, exempt and obliged. Students note who is entitled to what and who is exempt.
  • Set not required against not allowed: We aren't required to stay after six and We aren't allowed to stay after six. Students say which one lets them stay, then write a pair about their own school or job.

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The whole course: English B2.2 · Culture and Society

32 more lessons for adults at B2 in American English, with the same Why Desk team in Pittsburgh. Each lesson answers one question about how Americans learn, work, travel and remember, from the law behind the 40-hour week to the oral histories of StoryCorps. Learners link ideas in formal writing, report what is said and believed, and pack more into a sentence with participle and relative clauses. The practice exercises check themselves.See the course

  1. Unit 1 Learning reimagined

    adjective suffixes and negative prefixes, mixed conditionals, provided that and on condition that

    1. Lesson 1College for farmers' kids?Adjective suffixes and negative prefixes
    2. Lesson 2One cousin, one video, millions of learnersMixed conditionals: a past cause, a result now
    3. Lesson 3A college that says yesConditional linkers: provided that, on condition that, assuming, otherwise
    4. Lesson 4School in the woodsMixed conditionals: a present state, a past result

  2. Unit 2 Work-life balance

    be required to and be entitled to, present and perfect participle clauses, participle clauses after conjunctions

    1. Lesson 5 · you're hereWho decided a week is 40 hours?Formal rules: be required to, be entitled to, be exempt from
    2. Lesson 6A paid year off: rest or research?Present participle clauses for time and reason
    3. Lesson 7Was the coffee break born in Wisconsin?Perfect participle clauses: having done and having been done
    4. Lesson 8Why is the first Monday of September a day off?Participle phrases after conjunctions

  3. Unit 3 Turning points

    reduced relative clauses, preposition + which and whom, which for a whole clause, noun + preposition

    1. Lesson 9The keyboard that opened the officeReduced relative clauses: -ing and the past participle
    2. Lesson 10Earthrise: the photo that changed how we see EarthPreposition + which and whom
    3. Lesson 11A city of white palaces for six monthsSentence relative clauses: which for a whole clause
    4. Lesson 12The count that took eight years?Noun + preposition: a need for, a solution to, access to

  4. Unit 4 News and truth

    although, whereas and while, the impersonal passive, despite and however, is said to have

    1. Lesson 13A newspaper of their ownLinkers of contrast: although, even though, whereas and while
    2. Lesson 14Bat-people on the Moon?The impersonal passive: It is said that…
    3. Lesson 15Read like a fact-checkerLinkers of contrast: despite, in spite of, however and even so
    4. Lesson 16Did George Washington really chop down a cherry tree?Passive reporting verbs: is said to have done

  5. Unit 5 Travel that gives back

    so as to, in order to and so that, modifying comparatives, linkers of reason and result, verb + object + preposition + -ing

    1. Lesson 17Seven rules for the wild?Linkers of purpose: to, in order to, so as to, so that
    2. Lesson 18A lottery to see firefliesModifying comparatives and superlatives
    3. Lesson 19Sunrise with the turtlesLinkers of reason and result
    4. Lesson 20Volunteer on vacation?Verb + object + preposition + -ing

  6. Unit 6 Sport and society

    verb + noun collocations, what phrasal verb particles mean, a for-and-against essay, nouns from phrasal verbs

    1. Lesson 21The college team that changed disability sportVerb + noun collocations
    2. Lesson 22When women played pro baseballPhrasal verbs: what the particles mean
    3. Lesson 23Who needs a referee?The for and against essay: plan and linkers
    4. Lesson 24The comeback of Jim ThorpeNouns from phrasal verbs

  7. Unit 7 Buildings and heritage

    past participle clauses, quantifier + of which and of whom, report language, turn out and prove

    1. Lesson 25Homes built into the cliffsPast participle clauses with a passive meaning
    2. Lesson 26A house over a waterfallQuantifier + of which and of whom
    3. Lesson 27From factory to art museumReport language: headings, impersonal style, recommendations
    4. Lesson 28The towers the city tried to pull downTurn out and prove + to-infinitive or that clause

  8. Unit 8 Generations

    adverb + adjective collocations, three-part phrasal verbs, negative and echo questions, prepositional phrases

    1. Lesson 29Who decides where a generation ends?Adverb + adjective collocations
    2. Lesson 30Music students living in a retirement home?Three-part phrasal verbs
    3. Lesson 31Conversations kept for historyNegative questions and echo questions
    4. Lesson 32A day for grandparentsFixed prepositional phrases

Questions about this lesson

What does “be required to” mean?
It means a rule or a law says you must: Employers are required to pay overtime. It's formal, so you meet it in laws, contracts and job handbooks, and it takes the base form after to. Be obliged to means much the same, and Americans also say be obligated to. The B2 lesson Who decided a week is 40 hours? on edio.ai teaches it with the 1938 law behind overtime pay.
What does “be entitled to” mean?
It means you have a right to something: Today, covered, nonexempt employees are entitled to at least time and a half for hours over 40 in a workweek. It takes a noun (entitled to a break) or a base form (entitled to take a break), and the preposition is always to. Who decided a week is 40 hours?, a B2 lesson on edio.ai, practices it next to be required to and be exempt from.
What's the difference between “be required to” and “be supposed to”?
Be required to is a formal rule: a law, a contract or a handbook says so. Be supposed to is what people expect, and it's often broken: We're supposed to take a break at noon, but nobody does. Learners meet supposed to in B1, and Who decided a week is 40 hours? on edio.ai sets the two side by side in a scheme tip and a meaning quiz.
What's the difference between “not required to” and “not allowed to”?
Not required to means it isn't necessary, so it's your choice: You aren't required to wear a tie. Not allowed to means it's against the rules: You aren't allowed to smoke in the building. So We aren't required to stay after six lets you stay late, and We aren't allowed to stay after six sends you home. The scheme in Who decided a week is 40 hours? on edio.ai compares the two.
Is it “entitled to” or “entitled for”?
It's entitled to: the preposition after entitled never changes, so say You're entitled to a break, not entitled for. Three more phrases trip learners up the same way: exempt from (not exempt of), required to pay (not required paying) and obliged to pay (not obliged for paying). These are the common mistakes in Who decided a week is 40 hours?, a B2 lesson on edio.ai, and most wrong replies in its chat make a slip like these.
Who decided that a work week is 40 hours?
No one decided it in a single step. A cotton textile code set a 40-hour week in 1933, and a 1936 law required most government contractors to use an 8-hour day and a 40-hour week. Labor Secretary Frances Perkins pushed for a wage-and-hour law, and the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act set overtime pay after 44 hours a week, then 42, then 40 from October 24, 1940. Who decided a week is 40 hours? on edio.ai tells the story.
What did the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 do?
Signed on June 25, 1938, it took effect on October 24. It required overtime pay, not a shorter week: covered employers had to pay at least time and a half for hours over 44 a week in the first year, 42 in the second and 40 from October 24, 1940. It also set a 25-cent minimum wage and at first reached only about one worker in five. Who decided a week is 40 hours? on edio.ai explains.
How do I teach be required to and be entitled to at B2?
Start from rules students already follow at school or at work, and sort them into duties, rights and exceptions. Then rewrite each one with required to, entitled to or exempt from and check the word after it. Who decided a week is 40 hours? on edio.ai moves from Isaiah's explainer and his talk with a labor historian to the scheme, a gap-fill with words in brackets and four more drills.
What's a good game for practicing be required to and be entitled to?
Try “Write the handbook”: teams invent a workplace, such as a zoo or a space station, and write five rules with are required to, are entitled to, are exempt from and aren't allowed to. The other teams ask about them: Are cleaners entitled to free tickets? In Who decided a week is 40 hours? on edio.ai, the speaking chapter ends with a wheel of debate questions, such as Should every worker be entitled to overtime pay?
What's good homework for be required to and be entitled to?
Good homework tests the word that follows each phrase: choices between entitled to and entitled for, gaps built from words in brackets, a quiz on which sentence is correct and word order with questions. All ten homework tasks in Who decided a week is 40 hours? on edio.ai check themselves, and two are short texts: a page of an employee handbook and Isaiah's reply to a nurse.
How do you practice formal rules one-to-one?
Read a real job contract or school policy together and ask about it: Are you required to…? What are you entitled to? Who is exempt from…? Then the student explains a rule from their own job or school. The chat in Who decided a week is 40 hours? on edio.ai needs no partner: Emil starts a summer job at a movie theater, and the student picks the right replies about his handbook.
Are there interactive exercises for be required to?
Yes. Three of its parts play right on this page, with no account: from Who decided a week is 40 hours?, a B2 lesson on edio.ai, you get Isaiah's talk with Nanette, the labor historian; a gap-fill with the words in brackets; and a chat about Emil's new job. Other parts need an account.
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