A study on can could, may, might mistakes made by second year students at faculty of english, hanoi open university

PART A INTRODUCTION Rationale In everyday conversation, speakers not simply communicate facts They communicate with their certainties and theirs doubts, their guess and their hypotheses, their desire and their fears They often qualify their statements with respect to believability, reliability and general compability with accepted fact In other words, they expresses their attitudes to the proposition of their utterances The area of semantics that concerns the factual status of statements is epistemic modality Writers concerned with epistemic modality in natural languages are particularly concerned with the fact that propositions may be presented as being more or less likely to be true, and with the grammatical means employed by languages for indicating the strength of the speaker’s commitment to the proposition he has expressed – for example, modal verbs in English Learning to express and interpret epistemic modality is not an easy task for leaners of English as a foreign language The fact shows that most of the utterances produced by Vietnamese learners of English in a formal classroom situation tend to be declarative in form and informative in function The information asserted by learners in classrooms often consists of barely descriptive facts which the speaker is completely confident about and accordingly, it is in any case above challenge, leaving little room for cooperation in conversations In everyday life, language is used for a wide variety of functions Simple unmodified declaratives are inadequate for such subtle and significant functions as expressing feelings and judgments; making promises and rules The speaker who is confined to bare assertions is likely to be considered communicatively incompetent, overbearing, aggressive and rude As mentioned above, native speakers qualify their commitment to assertions They also soften and hedge their judgments and orders, boost and strengthen the expressions of their feelings and opinions in a variety of ways to reflect their perceptions of their relationship to those listening Vietnamese learners of English need to develop this ability to express the extent of their commitment to an assertion, as well as conveying their attitudes to their listeners in a variety of social contexts All languages provide strategies for expressing these aspects of meaning, through the precise devices used differ from one to another For example the English language has at its disposal modal verbs and some other lexical devices such as modal adverbs, modal adjectives… and the Vietnamese language has modal verbs and modal adverbs… A number of writers have investigated the linguistic devices to express epistemic modality Palmer’s (18) study of epistemic modality is restricted to what is “systematized and organized” within the grammatical systems of languages Palmer also excludes intonation and other prosodic on the grounds that they rarely interact with grammatical system in a systematic way/ There is, however a boarder conception of grammaticality grounded in the so-called modular view of the human mind, and in the particular, in the distinction between those aspects of meaning that are encoded by the grammar and those which are derived pragmatically through the interaction of pragmatic principles and inference According to this view the range of the grammatical devices used to indicate epistemic modality or evidence the speaker has for what he says must include a whole range of phenomena – syntactic, morphological, lexical, and prosodic Since a far greater range of propositional attitudes are lexicalized than are marked syntactically this conception allows not only for the study of a wider range of linguistic phenomena but also a wider range of meaning This view virtually is shared by Holmes who identifies the full range of lexical devices used to express epistemic modality in a variety of written and spoken texts Lyons (16) also mentions modal adverbs such as certainty, possibly as lexical devices expressing subjective modality This field study discusses some aspects of what is involved for learners of English as a foreign language in mastering strategies for expressing degrees of certainty, or more technically, epistemic modality, in English versus Vietnamese A classroom surveys show that learning to express and interpret modal meaning may present problems for Vietnamese learners of English Firstly the learners may have difficulty of accurately translating modal markers Secondly, many learners of English show the inability to appropriately hedging their utterances in a variety of contexts, and that they not make use of full range of linguistic forms in expressing epistemic modality There are a variety of reasons why learners of English might find this a difficult area of meaning to acquire competence For one thing, the distinction between epistemic and deontic modality is by no means clear – cut, which causes difficulty for the learners in interpreting particular uses of modal verbs in contexts For another thing, defining the precise point on the scale of certainty which is signaled by a particular linguistic device may not be easy, particularly for a non-native speaker Moreover, all linguistic forms may simultaneously convey a variety of types of meaning The linguistic devices used to express epistemic modality also serve to express aspects of affective or communicative meaning in a variety of different social situations In different contexts, a modal marker may signal a reassurance or a disagreement with the previous speaker, and at the same time it can strengthen or soften the illocutionary force of the assertion Though earlier researches have made great contributions in helping acquire English modality usage, it is still considered as one of the most difficult aspects of learning English The topic of this study was prompt by the fact that second-year students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University, especially those who majored in Translating, still have problems in interpreting the writer’s opinion and attitude expressed by such typical modal verbs as can, could, may, might With the reason above, I have decided to choose to research on the topic A study on “can, could, may, might” mistakes made by second-year students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University Aims and objectives of the study This study - A study on “can, could, may, might” mistakes made by second-year students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University – is focused on researching the semantic analysis of modal verbs expressed by can, could, may, might in English and common mistakes made by English majored students, especially the second-year students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University It is aimed at: - Studying some preliminaries and features of modal auxiliaries in English - Indicating some common “can, could, may, might” mistakes made by second-year students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University - Offering some suggestions for the application of the study to the teaching and learning of English modal verbs Scope of the study There are many modal verbs in English For example: must, have to…etc It would be interesting to research the uses of them all However, so as to make our tasks manageable in keeping the aims of this study, within the time allowance, it is intended that the most attention is paid to investigate can, could, may, might Research questions To achieve the aims, the thesis is going to answer the following questions: - What are the preliminaries and features of modal auxiliaries in English? - What are the common mistakes often made by second-year students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University? - What can be done to improve the teaching of English modal verbs? Methods of the study To catch all above aims of the study completely, I decide to choose descriptive method and error analysis as the main methods for my study The following steps are employed in my studying process: - Researching and collecting materials from reference books, internet, researcher’s experiences… - Interviewing and conducting the survey questionnaires for the secondyear students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University with determination to discover their learning attitude and the difficulties have existed up to now - Basing on personal experiences gained when I was the first major students, too Design of the study The study is composed of three parts Part A is the introduction which presents rationales, literature review, aims, scope of the study as well as methodology for the research Part B is the main part which consists of three chapters Chapter one is about the theoretical background for the research This chapter is aimed at establishing the framework of investigation It is chiefly deals with modality and modal verbs in English Chapter two is focused on investigating the meanings expressed by can, could, may, might and the common can, could, may, might mistakes made by second year students at Hanoi Open University Chapter three deals with the suggested methods and techniques for teachers and students to improve teaching and learning modal verbs/ The final part is the conclusion which presents a recapitulations of the study and provides possible concluding remarks and suggestions for further research PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 ENGLISH VERBS 1.1.1 Definition of English verbs A verb is a word or part of speech whereby something or someone is represented as existing, processing, acting, or being acted upon, at some particular time: past, present or future, and this is expressed by various manners i.e progressive, perfective, etc A verb is also a part of speech that joins the significance of other words together It does not have case-inflections, but it has tense, number and person Unlike many other widely-spoken Indo-European languages such as Spanish and French, the English verb system is largely periphrastic Periphrastic, in contrast to inflection, is “a phrase of two or more words used to express a grammatical relationship that could otherwise be expressed by the inflection of a single word” All English verb forms except for the simple present and simple past are periphrastic In order to give a full description of English verbs system, it is necessary first to classify them into smaller categories 1.1.2 Classification English verbs, according to Quirk et.al (1972) are classified into Auxiliary verb and Lexical verb Auxiliary Verb is divided into Primary Auxiliary Verb and Modal Auxiliary Verb Primary Auxiliary Verb is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it appears—for example, to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc Auxiliary verbs usually accompany a main verb The main verb provides the main semantic content of the clause An example is the verb have in the sentence I have finished my dinner Here, the main verb is finish, and the auxiliary have helps to express the perfect aspect Some sentences contain a chain of two or more auxiliary verbs Auxiliary verbs are also called helping verbs, helper verbs, or (verbal) auxiliaries The primary auxiliary verbs in English are be, do, and have Modal Auxiliary Verb (also “modal”, “modal auxiliary verb”, “modal auxiliary”) is a type of verb that is used to indicate modality-that is, likelihood, ability, permission and obligation In English and other Germanic languages, modal verbs are often distinguished as a class based on certain grammatical properties A modal verb gives information about the function of the main verb that it governs Modals have a wide variety of communicative functions, but these functions can generally be related to a scale ranging from possibility "may" to necessity "must" Lexical Verbs from semantic perspectives, are divided into Action Verb and Stative Verb Action Verbs are verbs that specifically describe what the subject of the sentence is doing These types of verbs carry a great deal of information in a sentence and can convey emotion and a sense of purpose that extends beyond the literal meanings of the words A sentence like "The band appeared on the scene." sounds much less impressive than the sentence "The band erupted onto the scene." The power of the action verb lies in the meaning and intention that they contain and how they bring direction and force to the sentence In linguistics, a stative verb is one that describes a state of being, in contrast to a dynamic verb which describes an action The difference can be categorized by saying that stative verbs are static or unchanging throughout their entire duration, whereas dynamic verbs describe a process that changes over time Many languages distinguish between these two types in terms of how they can be used grammatically In terms of their complementations, English Lexical Verbs include Intensive Verbs and Extensive Verbs which are further classified into Intransitive Verbs and Transitive Verbs Transitive Verbs are verbs that take one or more objects Transitive verbs can be classified by the number of objects they take Verbs that require only two arguments, a subject and a single direct object, are mono-transitive Verbs that take two objects, a direct object and an indirect object, are ditransitive, or less commonly "bitransitive" An example of a ditransitive verb in English is the verb to give, which may feature a subject, an indirect object, and a direct object: “John gave Mary the book.” Intransitive Verbs are action verbs that always express doable activities No direct object follows an intransitive verb In terms of morphogoly, English Lexical Verbs maybe refined as Phrasal Verbs The term phrasal verb is commonly applied to two or three distinct but related constructions in English: a verb and a particle and/or a preposition co-occur forming a single semantic unit This semantic unit cannot be understood based upon the meanings of the individual parts in isolation, but rather it can be taken as a whole In other words, the meaning is non-compositional and thus unpredictable Phrasal verbs that include a preposition are known as prepositional verbs and phrasal verbs that include a particle are also known as particle verbs Additional alternative terms for phrasal verb are compound verb, verb-adverb combination, verb-particle construction, two-part word/verb, and three-part word/verb (depending on the number of particles), and multi-word verb English Lexical Verbs can be Regular Verbs and Irregular Verbs Regular Verb is any verb whose conjugation follows the typical pattern, or one of the typical patterns, of the language to which it belongs A verb whose conjugation follows a different pattern is called an Irregular Verb (This is one instance of the distinction between regular and irregular inflection, which can also apply to other word classes, such as nouns and adjectives) In English, for example, verbs such as play, enter, and like are regular, since they form their inflected parts by adding the typical endings -s, -ing and -ed, to give forms such as plays, entering, and liked On the other hand, verbs such as drink, hit and have are irregular, since some of their parts are not made according to the typical pattern - drank and drunk (not "drinked"); hit (as past tense and past participle, not "hitted") and has and had (not "haves" and "haved") The classification of verbs as regular or irregular is to some extent a subjective matter If some conjugational paradigm in a language is followed by a limited number of verbs, or requires the specification of more than one principal part (as with the German strong verbs), views may differ as to whether the verbs in question should be considered irregular Most inflectional irregularities arise as a result of series of fairly uniform historical changes, so forms that appear to be irregular from a synchronic (contemporary) point of view may be seen as following more regular patterns when analyzed from a diachronic (historical linguistic) viewpoint 10 From the examples mentioned above, it can be said that modal adverbs in Vietnamese serve the functions of translating modal auxiliaries in English into Vietnamese For the fact that modal auxiliaries in English as the present form and past form refer to the present and future state of affair, can be added to the epistemic expressions to render the modal meanings in Vietnamese However, in some cases, there is some semantic distinction between some modal auxiliaries in English, which may cause errors in transfer The use of can and may is compared in the following examples E.g (15) The road can be blocked Con đường bị tắc nghẽn (16) The road may be blocked Có thể đường bị tắc nghẽn In (15) the speaker expresses a theoretical possibility in his judgment which means “It is possible to block the road” He is saying that something can be done, but he is not talking about the chances that it will happen Here the possibility is general, not about the actual chances of something being true or happening For this semantic feature can signal information about the characteristic behavior of people or things In (16) may denotes a factual possibility in the speaker’s judgment which implies “It is possible that the road is blocked” By this judgment, the speaker only view “The road is blocked” as a fact By saying this, he is saying that there is a chance that something will happen Another thing is a slight difference between the present form and the past of modal auxiliaries in English If the speaker utters (16) with might instead of may the utterance may sound less formal and the speaker may 27 sound more tentative with his assertion And if (15) is uttered with could instead of can, the judgment may sound less confidence and can be interpreted as both theoretical and factual possibility, though it is not particularly likely compared with may and might It can be said that English language uses tense to differentiate epistemic stance The strength of a speaker’s inference can be attenuated by changing the tense from present to past: may versus might, shall versus should, and will versus would, where the second member encodes a reduction in strength Pragmatically, natural language epistemic judgments are almost always those of the speaker They are also performative, in the sense that their use is itself the making of a judgment This is reflected in (16) by may have been, it makes a present time (and still performative) judgment about a past state of affair This can also be explained in deictic principle Tense is deictic, so temporal distance can substitute for modal distance The present tense is likely to be associated the immediate evidence for the obvious reason that the present encodes the lack of temporal distance between the reference time and the located time We know that the past tense is generally associated with removal and distancing, and so the modal function of tense change in English is understandable Thus in addition to their regular past tense function, the past forms of modal auxiliaries in English occur in present tense environments with meanings that differ somewhat from the present forms In Vietnamese, the marker can be used to mark past time and in most cases can occur with có thể, có lẽ only to denote a past state of affair This marker does not perform the pragmatic function as the past form of English 28 auxiliaries, can and be used in different modal functions It cannot be used to translate might into Vietnamese equivalents as In fact, reflects a premature or early result or state in the speaker’s mind and strengthens the evidence of a judgment as in: “Mới tháng trước, xanh vàng rực” 2.2 COMMON MISTAKES IN USING “CAN, COULD, MAY, MIGHT” OF SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS AT FACULTY OF ENGLISH, HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY 2.2.1 Students’ viewpoint on the importance of modal verbs A group of 30 second-year students at Hanoi Open University were created for the purpose of this study The thirty members are all from K21, Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University All subjects gave me consent to be involved in the study, after I had obtained permission from the Academic Affairs Department These students were admitted as regular full-time students at Hanoi Open University and were enrolled in courses for their respective program of study They were roughly even mixture of male and female who came from different parts of the country and had studied English since the age of 10 They were required to take several surveys about modal auxiliaries so as to find out the common mistakes often made by them and also the importance of modal verbs in their spoken/written English These students represent the variety of Hanoi university students as well as at many other Vietnamese universities Their uniform level of ability, as determined by their placement in the given tests and quiz, ensures greater consistency in the results After taking some tests and being interviewed, the students have shown different attitudes about modal verbs It is easy to see from the results that the 29 most confused modal verbs for the students are can and may Almost half of the students could not tell the differences between these two words Also, some students thought that modal verbs are not so important in English, some others did not share the same idea But they all share one common opinion that although modal auxiliaries are quite complicated, they are not detailedly taught in university 2.2.2 Common mistakes There are, of course, mistakes found in the tests and quiz Those mistakes were often made due to the grammar structures but most of them were made due to the lack of understanding the meaning of each modal verb Some brief examples and mistake corrections are listed out below: (i) Grammatical mistakes: Normally, we use the infinitive without to after modal verbs However, 15 percent of the students in the group had made these following mistakes E.g (10) Wrong: John may to come tomorrow Correct: John may come tomorrow (11) Wrong: I can to swim very well now Correct: I can swim very well now Modal verbs have no to-infinitive form, -ing form, -ed past form or –ed form Because they have only one form, we have to reword what we want to say by using other expressions Nevertheless, twenty out of thirty students in the group could not choose the right replacements for the former modal verbs E.g (12) Wrong: We’d like to can help you in some way Correct: We’d like to be able to help you in some way 30 Also, we use not or n’t after the modal verb to make the negative form We not use don’t/doesn’t/didn’t: E.g (13) Wrong: You don’t can park here Correct: You can’t park here (14) Wrong: He doesn’t could sing beautifully Correct: He couldn’t sing beautifully Finally, we normally put adverbs after modal verbs: E.g (15) Wrong: You always can ask me for help Correct: You can always ask me for help (ii) Mistakes caused by misunderstanding Most of the students get confused when it comes to choose between can and may or can and could This kind of mistakes is easily caused due to the meanings of can, could and may in Vietnamese (they are all translated as “có thể”) E.g (16) Wrong: Can I go to the bathroom? Correct: May I go to the bathroom? (17) Wrong: May you imagine a world without war? Correct: Can you imagine a world without war? (18) Wrong: I’m so angry, I can murder her Correct: I’m so angry, I could murder her 31 2.3 SUMMARY The descriptive phase of the semantic features of English modals reveals that in both the English system and the Vietnamese system there are grammaticalized items, lexicalized items to realize the epistemic modal functions Modal auxiliary in English can show distinctive feature with their tense change in signaling epistemic stance whereas in Vietnamese this is transferred by lexical meanings English modals of this type show a slight difference in pragmatic meaning in positions other than normal position English system and Vietnamese system can be found with the cognitive and perceptual verbs which, semantically, convey the speaker’s veracity in the assertion Again, the tense change in the cognitive verbs in English signals the pragmatic force whereas in Vietnamese, this can be achieved by the lexical devices Chapter has presented the conventional meanings of the modals can, could, may, might and has dealt with the common can, could may, might mistakes made by second year students of Hanoi Open University The presentation has shown that can is used to describe ability, possibility, and permission and to express uncertainty and doubt May is also used to denote possibility and permission All things considered, can and may are different in that can is used to say whether situations and events are possible theoretically whereas may is used to say that there is a chance that something is true, or that there is possibility of it happening In Vietnamese, can and may are both translated as “có thể”, which can cause ambiguity In denoting permission, can and may differ in the degree of formality That is to say, unlike English, the type of possibility and the degree of formality are not expressed via Vietnamese modal verbs The examples analyzed have partly revealed the 32 ambiguity in meaning of Vietnamese modal verbs This is the reason that causes the learners’ confusion The study of the modal meanings expressed by can, could, may, might in English and its correlative examples can be summarized in the table below Modal verbs Usage Ability Can When something is possible Permission Informal request Past form of “can” Could Polite request Possibility Possibility May Ask for or give permission (formal) Past form of “may” Might Possibility Example I can several things at the same time Miracle can happen You can go now Can you come here for a minute? She said she could pay for us as well Could you move your bag, please? It could be that he missed the train It may rain tomorrow May I speak? He said he might change his mind This might fail 33 CHAPTER SUGGESTED METHODS AND TECHNIQUES FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS TO IMPROVE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF MODAL VERBS 3.1 SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS First of all, teachers should introduce all modals at the beginning of the lesson Start by introducing all the modal verbs you wish to talk about This may include can, could, may, might, must, will, would, shall, should, and ought to but, depending on the level of your class, you can narrow it down to those you feel are most important, in this case, can, could, may, might Obviously there are no images that can help students understand the meanings of these words so you can pronunciation practice simply by pointing to the words on the board In your introduction you can cover some rules that apply to all modal verbs Unlike most verbs, no -s is needed to form the third person singular E.g (19) Wrong: He work Correct: He can Adding not forms the negative structure Additionally they always require another verb because they cannot act as the main verb in a sentence and they only have present tense forms so unlike the word swim, there is no past tense form for modals This may seem like a long and confusing introduction but it is best after the pronunciation practice to simply write the modals and their rules off to the side of the board for reference Secondly, teachers should also introduce the grammatical meanings of modal verbs, in this case, ability/inability and possibility/impossibility 34 Modals are often used to talk about abilities and possibilities or lack of them Some of the words you want to focus on in this section are can, could, may, and might Talk to the students about things they can and practice using can in the target structure because this will be the easiest word to start off with After that, teacher should talk about might because it is also commonly used when talking about present possibilities E.g (20) We can’t play music in class because the other classes might be taking tests This sentence nicely combines the two words in one sentence Building upon that, talk about how could and may are used to discuss future abilities and possibilities and also how could can be used to talk about the past in a sentence such as “When I was a child, I could climb trees.” So as you can see just this one section on modals can take a while It is best to introduce structures gradually and to plan lots of practice activities for each Moreover, teachers should mention other uses of modal verbs Teachers can center another lesson on asking for permission or making an offer or request Can, could, may, shall, will, and would can all be used so teacher might want to break this up into pairs by introducing can and could, will and would, and finally may and shall In other lessons you can cover using modals to make suggestions and give advice, to talk about obligations and prohibitions, and lastly cover using ought to and should to say what the correct action would be for instance “She ought to see a doctor.” or “We should be quiet while the teacher is talking.” For some classes it is not necessary to cover all the different uses of modal verbs so feel free to choose what is most important and then cover those items thoroughly before moving on to the next topic 35 Besides, if teacher covers many different uses of modal verbs in your class, be sure to have a lesson which combines them again It makes sense to start with all the words you plan to cover in the first class and finish the same way Since students have been focusing on just one use at a time, this lesson will bring to their attention the range of uses these words have and really challenge them Fill in the blank and multiple choice worksheets may be appropriate and of course teacher can conduct role plays based on the different uses of modal verbs too Modal verbs have many uses Teachers should review the uses of modals carefully before introducing them and think about what students would most benefit from studying so that plenty of time can be dedicated to those items Leaving out some modals or some uses of modals is not the end of the world and may just give your students a better chance of understanding what is covered Finally, one of the most important aspects in teaching is teaching materials Surveys have shown that textbooks used in the first stage of learning English in Vietnam not provide much knowledge about English Modal, especially pragmatic knowledge For example in English Student book, unit 7, practice set 1, “may” is introduced as in a possible intention There is no other English Modal in contrast with “may” to establish its value, though it can be understood with the clue: I’m not sure/I can’t make up my mind In the guidebook to learn English well, “might” is said as the past form of “may” but there is no further information about its degree of certainty We suggest that English modal should be introduced in more than one form or member in a class, so that their value can be established in various contexts Sensory markers and Reportive/Hearsay markers should be introduced to learners at first stage In many textbooks these markers are 36 simply treated as the introductory clause to report an event without any modal implicature Some learners may be addicted to using the same English Modal in their assertion in any situation This may be due to the fact that they are not “exposed” enough to the practice of expressing epistemic modality, which can help to master various kinds of English Modals and their different nuances 3.2 SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDENTS Firstly, reading is one of the top skill every student needs to be good at Read a book, newspaper or journal in English that includes many modal verbs This will help to learn modals as well as new vocabulary words in a fun way This is also a great tip for improving English in a technical field Even by spending a mere 15 minutes a day, your skills can improve drastically Secondly, listen to speeches or watch movies or documentaries in areas you aren't familiar with are fun tips on improving English Pay attention on how the speakers use modal verbs This activity will also help improve listening and vocabulary at the same time At first you can use subtitles, then turn the subtitles off when the listening part of this activity becomes easier Although less fun, learning grammar is an essential tool for English Knowing English modal auxiliaries grammar inside and out is one of the top tips This should be tackled at the same time as both reading and listening exercises so that you understand how the sentence is constructed, and can manipulate it later to suit your needs Also, keeping a diary allows you to utilize all of your English skills that you've been practicing with reading, listening and grammar As a bonus, you can go back over your entries and grade yourself, noting where you can 37 improve more This is one of the greatest tips on improving English at any stage of learning the language Finally, when you feel you are ready, go for total immersion This means surrounding yourself by English speakers Of all English tips, this one will test all of your skills In conclusion, the best way to learn English modals is to involve them into every English skills, such as: speaking, listening, reading, and writing Only then, students will be able to use modal auxiliaries like native speakers 38 PART C CONCLUSION RECAPITULATION As far as the theoretical background is concerned, the study has briefly presented concepts of modality, modal verbs in English as well as morphological, syntactic and semantic features of modal verbs in English This theory has been a solid framework for the study on “can, could, may, might” mistakes made by second-year students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University Semantically, the English modals can, could, may, might express the notion of ability, possibility and permission Can and may refer to different types of possibility: can shows theoretical possibility whereas may talks about factual possibility Each modal conveys itself the modal meaning that the speaker implies It is discovered that these modals not simply convey only one meaning, but there exists a wide range of meanings The specific modal in a certain situation makes clear which meaning is intended A survey has also been done for the purpose of this study: A study on “can, could, may, might” mistakes made by second-year students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University The analysis has shown that there occurs a few modal verb forms in expressing possibility and in expressing permission This is seen as a difference between English modal verbs and Vietnamese ones Importantly, some suggestions and tips have been mentioned above in order to help teachers and students at Hanoi Open University as well as those from different universities in Vietnam improve their teaching, learning English modal verbs 39 CONCLUDING REMARKS The study has gained the aims set forth with the remarks listed below: (i) Can, could, may, might not express only a certain meaning but they usually convey a wide range of meanings To have a correct interpretation of a modal, it is suggested to accord a central place to the role of both speaker and hearer in the construction of meaning and take account of both social and psychological factors (ii) The above findings are the basis for the implication of teaching English modal verbs to Vietnamese learners of English Can, could, may, might are of various meanings Sometimes, can and may have the same meanings in expressing possibility, permission but they cannot be used interchangeably One of the suggestions is about ways which help learners to realize the meaning of each modal in certain setting by regarding to the context of the utterance That is the reason why teaching English modal verbs faces with great challenges Some techniques presented above can be used in teaching modal verbs However, there is no single technique used to teach a particular language point because the background of learners and teaching conditions are different All things considered, teachers should choose appropriate techniques and activities in order to help students fully master the modals 40 REFERENCES Chau, Do Huu 1983 Ngu Nghia Hoc He Thong va Ngu Nghia Hoc Hoat Dong Systematic Semantics Active Semantics Language No1 Givon, T 1989 Mind, Code and Context – Essays in Pragmatics Lawrence Erlebaum associates, Publishers London Halliday, M A K (1976) System and Functions of Language In G Kress (Ed.) London: Oxford University Press James, Carl, 1980 Contrastive Analysis Longman Group Ltd Leech, G (1987) Meaning and the English verbs, London: Longman Leech, J.N 1980, Language and Tact Pragmatics and Beyond Series Lewis, M (1986) The English Verb: An Exploration of Structure and Meaning London: Language Teaching Publication Lyons, J 1977 Semantics Cambridge University press Cambridge Palmer, F.R (1979) Modality and the English Modals London: Longman 10 Palmer, F.R (1986) Mood and Modality Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 11 Quirk R (1987) A University Grammar of English London: Longman 12 Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., Svartvik, J 1972 A Grammar of Contemporary English Longman 13 Swan, Michael 1980 Practical English Usage Oxford University Press 14 Thomson, A.J and Martinet, A.V (1986) (4th ed) A Practical English Grammar Oxford University Press 15 Yule, G (1998) Explaining English Grammar Oxford University Press 41