Implications for teaching English modal auxiliary verbs Implications for teaching English modal auxiliary verbs 1 Introduction English is considered to be an international language used in many fields It has been taught in Vietnam for decades but it is several years since the learning and teaching of English have been paid much attention to It is, nowadays, widely recognized as the key language tool in the integrating process into the world, English becomes the most popular means of communicatio.
Implications for teaching English modal auxiliary verbs Introduction English is considered to be an international language used in many fields It has been taught in Vietnam for decades but it is several years since the learning and teaching of English have been paid much attention to It is, nowadays, widely recognized as the key language tool in the integrating process into the world, English becomes the most popular means of communication Being aware of the importance of English, Vietnamese learners try to master it A lot of them are learning English as their working language with foreigners, moreover, this language has become a compulsory subject in schools, colleges and universities in Vietnam However, to learn English well, Vietnamese learners have to face a lot of difficulties, as English belongs to a quite different language family One of the most frequent difficulties is the use of verbs, especially modal auxiliary verbs in particular It is clear that, in English, verbs are the most complicated type of words used most often, playing the first important position in comparison with other word classes and in the verb phrase, modality is extensively used When learning modal auxiliary verbs, a lot of students often confuse "will" with "shall" or "must" with "have to" Their meanings in Vietnamese may be the same but their uses in English are quite different They cannot distinguish between "I have to learn English every day" with "I must learn English every day" In fact, the "have to" statement may be paraphrased "it is necessary for me to learn English everyday" while the "must" statement may be paraphrased "in the present circumstances I see it as necessary that learn English everyday" In this teaching situation, the teacher has to look for the best way to make learners understand it better With the problems having been identified, I attempt to put forth some implications for teaching modal auxiliary verbs Development 2.1 The importance of teaching modal auxiliary verbs 2.1.1 Supporting teaching verb phrase When teaching modal auxiliary verbs in the presentation stage, the teacher explains the meanings, the uses, the forms and presents structures, through contextualization, dialogue and examples which need to be taught in the lesson In this way, modal auxiliary verbs are introduced to students The explanation of grammar structure and the presentation of modal auxiliary verbs are techniques that the teacher uses to explicit the meaning and use of those modal auxiliary verbs to students Moreover, the aim of modal auxiliary verbs practice stage is to get students to learn the structures so thoroughly that they will be able to produce them correctly on their own In this stage, some techniques like controlled practice, guided practice and free practice are often implemented by the teacher Consequently, the knowledge of modal auxiliary verbs can be acquired by students 2.1.2 Relating to other grammar points According to Azar, S.B (1989, p.68), English modal auxiliary verbs are: can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, must, need, ought to, dare, have to They are used with very great frequency and in a wide range of meanings They generally express concepts or attitudes relating to recommendation, obligation, necessity, and prohibition; permission and refusal; possibility, expectation, probability and certainty; promise and intention; ability and willingness For example, they can convey the idea that a speaker feels something is necessary, advisable, permissible, possible, or probable; and in addition, they can also convey the strength of these attitudes One of the features which is very important and often causes difficulty in the study of modality is that many modal verbs have more than one meaning or use, and in some cases two different modal verbs have some meanings or uses in common, but are not completely interchangeable When teaching modal auxiliary verbs, teachers introduce modal auxiliary verbs to students relating to grammatical structures of verb phrases For example, students are taught to combine modal auxiliary verbs with different tenses and their uses in various situations Students are introduced the grammatical structures which not exist in Vietnamese grammar such as "can/ must/ should have done something" and "will/ shall have done something" They are also given the structures of three types of conditional sentences with "would", hypothetical meaning and the conditions, which cause a lot of confusion to students of English Similarly, when teaching modal auxiliary verbs, teachers should bear in mind the fact that modal auxiliary verbs are limited in their range of time reference That is why they always have to give students some related verb phrase structures which express ideas such as possibility, ability, compulsion probability and willingness, etc at different times: past, present or future or with different aspects: perfective or continuous In that way, other English grammar points are conveyed to students of English through modal auxiliary verb teaching, and of course students will have an overall view of grammar in that area 2.2 Steps and techniques used to teach modal auxiliary verbs There is no single method to teach modal auxiliary verbs, therefore, teachers should base themselves on the content of the lesson, students' level, grammatical items they want to teach in order to find a suitable method which they can achieve the best results On the whole, modal auxiliary verb teaching are carried out in two stages: presentation and practice 2.2.1 Techniques for presentation According to Mackey (1978, p 302), presentation means communicating something to somebody It is an essential part of the method, the most carefully graded selection of a language is useless unless it gets into the minds of the learners 2.2.1.1 Presenting the modal auxiliary structures through contextualization "Modal auxiliaries are very problematic for most students as well because, unlike other verbs in English, modals act like sentential operations That is, they impart a quality of probability, obligation, etc to the entire sentence Therefore, to communicate the function and meaning of a modal, lessons must be richly contextualized with a variety of examples" (Sharon Hilles, Techniques and Resources in Teaching Grammar, pp 54, 55) Basing themselves on that idea, by means of contextualization in the teaching modal auxiliary verbs, teachers should use either real or simulated situation to make learning activity more effective and to increase the students' motivation - Real situation: Teacher should make full use of real situation in the classroom and combine them with the appropriate facial expression and actions to make the lesson more interesting and the meaning of the items clearer For example, teacher asks one student some questions about his own experience: T: Hung, I can type well What can you do? S: I can write carefully T: Hung can write carefully What can you do, Hoa? S: I can play the guitar - Simulated situation: This technique will be used when students not understand the structure so the situations are created by the teacher must be clear and easy to understand For example, to teach "must", teacher may tell the following story about someone in which "must" is used "Yesterday, I went to see Mr John he was at home but he was not fine He had been ill for two days His wife said that he could not go to work because of his bad health and she was worried about his health very much Therefore, I suggested that he should go to see the doctor as soon as possible He said that this Monday his wife would take him to the doctor's/ Today is Monday I call him but no one is at home What can we conclude?" Having introduced the text to students, teachers may call students to guess where people in the story are They may get answers such as " undoubtedly, John and his wife must be in the doctor's" Then teacher may write the sentence on board, and then tell them another story which the inferential use of "must" can be elicited When they have some sentences on the board produced by students themselves, they can draw students attention to the points This technique is very necessary for teachers to teach difficult structures 2.2.1.2 Presenting the modal auxiliary structures through dialogues Students often enjoy reading and doing role-plays as in dialogues so this technique often achieves good results Presenting modal auxiliary verbs and their equivalent structures through dialogues, teachers not have to waste time creating situations because dialogues themselves are very clear in the situations When learning dialogues, students may meet some new structures In this case, these structures should be introduced and clearly presented Teacher fives some explanation to make the meaning of these structures clearly And basing themselves on the context of the dialogue, students can understand the structures used in the dialogue more clearly After that, the teacher helps students to practice these structures 2.2.1.3 Presenting modal auxiliary verbs and their equivalent structures through visual aids According to Adrian Doff, the simplest and clearest way to present a structure is often to show it directly, using things the students can see: objects, classroom, yourself, students themselves and pictures For example, when using real objects, teacher can pint to the blackboard and ask students "what can this blackboard be made of?" Or other sentences such as " what could this desk be made of?" and "what can your shirt be made from?" When using classroom, teacher can tell students about its cleanliness, and ask them what classroom must be done every day, expecting answer like " the classroom must be cleaned every day" In this way, modal auxiliary verb "must" can be practiced Teacher gives students some pictures with relevant contents and asks students to discuss and give comments In the class, visual aids can be used at any stage of the lesson because good visual aids are not just used once, but again and again 2.2.1.4 Presenting modal auxiliary verbs and their equivalent structures through examples Teacher can use either inductive method or deductive method in teaching this technique It means that, the teacher could give a series of examples of the structures and then students must draw out the rules themselves The other way is that teacher explains the rules with examples and students study the rules and finally make up sentences with the help of teacher In either way, students will have chances to use the language 2.2.2 Teaching techniques at Practice stage While purpose of the stage of presentation is to show the meaning and the use of modal auxiliary verbs to students, the practice stage is aimed at developing students' ability to use modal auxiliary verbs through different language practice activities This can be considered an important part in teaching modal auxiliary verbs because according to Roger Gover and Steve Walters (Teaching Practice Handbook, 1983, p 83), "language that has been presented for the first time will normally need to be practiced orally by students" In this stage, students have chance to practice sentence patterns, the structures and can use them in suitable situations There are three types of practice activities on modal auxiliary verbs: 2.2.2.1 Controlled practice At this stage, teacher's work is shown in the following points: - Teacher helps students understand what they have to with modal auxiliary verbs and make sure that they understand them thoroughly - Teacher corrects students' mistakes - Teacher gives students prompts with new words on the board or visual aids to practice language In this practice, there are some techniques and exercises, which can be used to teach modal auxiliary verbs * Repetition: Repetition is an indispensable activity in structural practice Repetition can be in chorus, in groups, in pairs or individuals This kind of exercises is very easy to design After giving an example using the structure students have just learnt, the teacher asks them to repeat it with correct stress and intonation One point should be made clear is that grammar is taught not only for sake of grammar but for sake of improving students' language ability In the light of that idea, besides teaching grammar, teacher should also provide students with knowledge of phonetics and vocabulary in order to develop four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing Teacher gives examples and gets class to repeat them * Completion: students are given some parts of a sentence or a paragraph They are asked to complete the sentence or the paragraph Completion exercise can also be gap filling like close reading texts * Paraphrase: With given sentences, students are asked to rewrite them so that their meaning remains unchanged, which is called sentence transformation * Situation practice: The objectives of teaching grammar in general and teaching modal auxiliary verbs in particular is that students should know not only the form and meaning of the structures but also their uses That means students must know how to use the structures in the right situations Therefore, situation practice is very important The situations the teacher uses for practice must be from easy to difficult and must be closed to real life situations * Meaningful transformation: In case students may not understand the new structure so the teacher should use pictures as a kind of visual aids with meaning to get students guess it and say it 2.2.2.2 Free practice The role of the teacher becomes less dominant in this stage Teacher does not spend time explaining things, students should be given more chance to try out the language by themselves In other words, teacher does not control the subject matter apart from setting up the beginning of the activity, the students are free to say whatever they want and choose the direction their conversation takes place Generally, practice of this kind should be followed by a free activity, which gives students the chance to use modal auxiliary verbs and their equivalent structures to give their own ideas or to talk about their own experience There are two kinds of topics which are useful for free oral practice: - We can get students to talk about real life - We can get students to imagine a situation that is natural For example, when students have learnt structure " can something" and passage about Carol's ability " Carol Stuart is a good student She is studying chemistry She can play the piano and the guitar very well She is beautiful, too", teacher can ask them to talk about their abilities S/he can begin by asking questions like the following: - Carol can play the piano and the guitar very well - Please tell me about your abilities - What can you do? - And who can play the guitar in the class? Teacher lets students answer her questions by using modal auxiliary verb "can" Furthermore, teacher requires students to work in pairs or in groups Their task is to tell each other or one another about their abilities For example: A: I can paint my house What can you do? B: I can cook very well At this step, with a large class, it may be necessary to make the activity more highly organized, rather than done freely in groups For example, teacher should ask students in turn to give ideas, and get students to ask each other like "Carol can play the piano And you?" After a few minutes of working in pairs or in groups, students are told to report their own abilities At this time, teacher calls some representatives of some groups to talk about their information they have got from practice work And s/he can correct students' mistakes if necessary The aim of the activity is to get students to talk as much as possible So teacher should try to prompt rather than force students to talk Another common activity that can be used to practice the use of modal auxiliary verb "can" is "find someone who can (type/ swim/ speak English, ) With a pen and a piece of paper, students are asked to move round classroom to ask their friends and note down the information after adequate time for practice, students are asked to report back to the whole class on the information they have Doing that way, students have the most chances to practice all four skills in one activity The less teacher says, the more chance students have to speak Consequently, students take an active part in the practice lesson because they feel more confident and at ease when they can talk with their friends about themselves in English Conclusion Modal auxiliary verb is a small part of English grammar but it is always the heated problem that needs to be discussed and it causes a lot of difficulties for learners of English English modal auxiliary verb plays a very important role in the grammar system It is a subclass, besides other subclasses: auxiliary verbs and lexical verbs It has functions both as an auxiliary verb and a lexical verb Each modal verb carries many different meanings, and each modal meaning can be expressed by many modal verbs but of course, with different shades of meaning, which cause difficulties for the learners of English especially for the beginners Some techniques mentioned above can be used in teaching modal auxiliary verbs, however, there is no single method or technique used to teach a particular language point because of background of different learners, situations, teaching and learning conditions That is why teachers have to take those points into consideration so that teacher can choose appropriate method, techniques in order to help students learn better Due to short time and limited knowledge on this subject, mistakes and errors are inevitable All remarks and suggestions are well-received and deeply-appreciated Hopefully, this small study will be of great use to English learners, teachers, and to whom care for this matter References Gordon, E.M and Krylova, I P., (1968) Modality in Modern English Moscow 10 Leech, Geoffrey and Svartwick, J A., (1989) Communicative Grammar of English Longman Azar, S B., (1989) Understanding and Using English Grammar United States of America Prentice Hall, Inc Doff, A., (1988) Teaching English - A framing course for teachers Great Britain: Cambridge University Press Sharon Hilles Techniques and Resources in Teaching Grammar Richards, J.C and Rodgers, T.S., (1986) Approaches and Method in Language Teaching United State of America Cambridge University Press 11 ... When teaching modal auxiliary verbs, teachers introduce modal auxiliary verbs to students relating to grammatical structures of verb phrases For example, students are taught to combine modal auxiliary. .. cause a lot of confusion to students of English Similarly, when teaching modal auxiliary verbs, teachers should bear in mind the fact that modal auxiliary verbs are limited in their range of time... Consequently, the knowledge of modal auxiliary verbs can be acquired by students 2.1.2 Relating to other grammar points According to Azar, S.B (1989, p.68), English modal auxiliary verbs are: can, could,