An analysis of errors made by vietnamese secondary school students in using english modal auxiliary verbs can, could, may, must and semi auxiliary verb have to

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An analysis of errors made by vietnamese secondary school students in using english modal auxiliary verbs can, could, may, must and semi   auxiliary verb have to

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1 VINH UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT ======== L£ THÞ Qóy LéC AN ANALYSIS OF ERRORS MADE BY Vietnamese SECONDARY School STUDENTS In Using ENGLISH MODAL AUXILARIARY VERBS CAN, COULD, MAY, HAVE TO, AND MUST and semi – auxiliary verb have to (phÂn tích lỗi sử dụng động từ khuyết thiếu: can, could, may, must v bán trợ động tõ ë häc sinh THPT) GRADUATION THESIS FIELD: LINGUISTICS Vinh, 2006 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have completed my graduation thesis without the enthusiastic help and encouragement of my teachers, my family as well as my friends I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Vu Thi Viet Huong, MA who gave me useful ideas and advice and helped me a lot in collecting materials and completing the study I would also like to express my thanks to all teachers in the foreign language department of Vinh University for their lectures on the area of valuable knowle dge which enlightened the arguments in the study I would like to express my special thanks to my friends who were always beside me and help me overcome the difficulty during the time of doing the thesis Finally, I wish to express my deep thanks to my parents and my younger brother for their encouragement and support to my doing this thesis Vinh, summer, 2006 Le Thi Quy Loc SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS L1: First language L2: Second language FL: Foreign language TL: Thai Lao E.g.: For example WTO: World Trade Organization LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Result of section 1-test1 Table 2.2: Result of section 2- test Table 2.3: Result of section 3- test Table 2.4: Result of section 4-test Table 2.5: Overall results TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements i Symbols and abbreviations .ii List of table .iii Table of content iv PART I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study1 1.2 Aims and of the study 1.3 Scope of the study .3 1.4 Methods of the study 1.5 Overview of the study .3 PART II: CONTENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 The concept of modality 1.2 Modality in the light of semantics .6 1.2.1 Mood 1.2.2 Types of modality 1.3 General introduction about modal auxiliaries in English 1.3.1 The uses of Can and Could .10 1.3.2 The uses of May .12 1.3.3 The uses of Must 12 1.3.4 The uses of Have to and Must 13 1.4 Modal auxiliaries in Vietnamese 16 1.5 Errors in language learning process 17 1.5.1 The notion of error 17 1.5.2 Errors and mistakes 18 1.5.3 Error analysis 19 1.5.4 Causes of errors .20 1.5.4.1 Interlingual errors and mother tongue interference 20 1.5.4.2 Intralingual errors and development errors .21 (1) Over-generalization 22 (2) Ignorance of rule restrictions .23 (3) Incomplete application of rules 23 (4) False concept hypothesized .24 CHAPTER2: THE STUDY 25 2.1 Research questions .25 2.2 Research setting 25 2.3 Subjects 25 2.4 Data collection 26 2.5 Procedure 26 2.6 Results of the study, findings and discussions 27 2.6.1 Errors in section 1-test1 27 2.6.2 Errors in section 2-test1 30 2.6.3 Errors in section 3-test1 32 2.6.4 Errors in section 4-test 33 2.6.5 General tendencies 35 2.6.6 Errors in translation test 36 CHAPTER 3: IMPLICATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 38 3.1 Research questions revisited 38 3.2 Implications for teaching English modal verbs Can, Could, May, Have to and Must to Vietnamese secondary students 39 3.2.1 Suggestions for presentation 39 3.2.2 Suggestions for practice 42 3.2.3 Implications for production 45 PART III: CONCLUSION…………………………………………… 46 References Appendix1 Appendix Part I: Introduction 1.1Rational of the study Nowadays, English has become one of the most important international languages In Vietnam, there are more and more people speak English However, it is not easy for every one to use it correctly in daily life In communication, native speakers often not only qualify their commitment to assertion but also soften and hedge their judgments and orders and strengthen the expressions of their feelings and opinions of their feelings and opinions in order to reflect cooperation in conversations These aspects of language belong to what is referred to as modality.Accodding to Halliday (1985: 86) , modality is an expression of the speaker’s opinion towards the content of what he is saying in terms of certainty, probability, possibility, ect.Modality also means an expression of the factual conditions on the process in terms of obligation, permission, and willingness ect.For example, the sentence “He may come” can be either a possibility ( it is possible that he may comes) or a permission ( he is allowed to come).Modality is obviously a complicated matter in the English language I myself have several times been asked such a question by my students: “I wonder when exactly we use can and when may Can you explain?” Modality has caused a lot of difficulty for Vietnamese students in learning and using English It is any wonder that modal verb _the small part of modality _cause troubles for most of the learners of English Learner usually wonders whether he/she should say “you must help him " or "you have to help him" "May I smoke in here "or "Can I smoke in here ".Modal verb presents little difficulty for native speakers but they appear tobe troublesome and confusing for the learners of English Errors in the learning process are inevitable Making error is a part of learning and finding error is a part of teaching, this helps the process of learning quicker and effective, given the fact that description and analysis of students' errors play an important role in the improvement of the teaching and learning Error analysis has been an interesting area, which has attracted the attention of an increasing number of researchers For all of the above reasons, in my thesis, we would like to make an empirical study with a thorough analysis of the errors committed by Vietnamese students of English in using English modal verbs can, could, may, have to and must An analysis specializing in errors in using English modal verb will bring about a number of benefits First, it will tell a teacher of English how well his or her students master the meaning and use of English modal verbs, where they need help and what sort of help that need Second, errors collected will serve, as good feedback for learners to make self-adjustment in this particular area In addition, the general benefit for second language acquisition researchers is that errors can server as evidence to discover what strategies learners apply in learning and acquiring the language 1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY The study reported in this thesis aims to: - Identify the errors in using modal verbs can, could, may, , must and semi-auxiliary verb “have to” by Vietnamese learners at TL secondary school - Find the major causes and sources of their errors and - Make some suggestions for teaching and learning: can, could, may, have to, and must 1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY Within the limitation of a graduation thesis, I would like to deal with modal verbs can, could, may, have to and must and semi- auxiliary verb “have to” which usually happen in secondary school The survey is carried out at Thai Lao secondary school, Hung Nguyen district, Nghe An province 1.4 METHOD OF THE STUDY Data will be collected via performance of written tasks It includes tasks, including translations (from Vietnamese into English), gap- filling Descriptive method will be used to identify types of errors The tasks will be designed in the written form involving different language contexts to provoke receptive and expressive errors in model verbs These tasks will be done by a sample of approximately 100 students from classes randomly chosen at Thai 10 Lao secondary school, without using and reference books or dictionaries, and under my supervision 1.5 OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY This thesis consists of three parts: Part I: Introduction In this part, the rationale of the study is presented The aim; scope and method of the study are then identified An overview of the thesis is also provided Part II: Content The content consists of three chapters: - Chapter 1: Theoretical background This chapter will provide in-depth review of the relevant literature related to the issue under investigation Specially, a review of modal verbs in English will provide the theoretical framework for the identification of the errors that student made In addition, theories about the sources of errors will help explore what factor caused students’ commitment of errors in using modal verbs in English Error analysis as the main theoretical tool for analyzing data will also review - Chapter 2: The study The methodology adopted to collect data for the research will be presented in this chapter It includes the description of research site, participants, and data collection techniques and data analysis methods Then, the results and findings of the study will be presented and discussed - Chapter 3: Implications and suggestions 37 students having been exclusively exposed to this expression in their learning process and practiced a lot with it This error may result from faulty comprehension of distinction of target language items We call this error “ false concepts hypothesized” As for the modal verb in item 3, the percentages of the students making errors are somewhat lower Only 19% of the student did it wrong With this item “Scotland be very warm in September ”, the students were expected to fill “can” in the gap But 19 students failed to use it As reviewed in chapter 1, both “can” and “may” are used to talk possibility “Can” is used for theoretical possibility and what is common or typical, “may” is used for factually possibility Therefore, with this sentence, “can” is appropriate modal verb This is a case of mother tongue interference With the last item, “ I put the TV on? It is expected that modal verb “may” is used However, 25 students made errors when they chose “can” and “could” to complete the sentence Obviously, “can” “may” and “could” can be used for permission, but “may” is more formal and more polite than “can” and “could” As a result ,the subject may have thought of “can” and “could” and tried to use them inappropriately This kind of error is believed to be caused by a mixture of mother tongue interference and cultural differences To summarize, after a thorough investigation into errors in gap-filling exercise, it has been found that causes of errors include mother tongue interference, cultural differences and false concept hypothesized .2.6.3 Errors in section 3– test1 Table 2.3: Result of section 3-test1 Item number Intended focal point Correct Incorrect number percentage number Have to Have to Must 35 35 82 35% 35% 82% 65 65 18 percentage 65% 65% 18% 38 Don’t have to Must not 77 26 77% 26% 23 74 23% 74% This section is gap-filling section It required the student to fill in the gap with “must”, “have to”, “must not” and “do not have to” Table 2.3 above shows that students had a lot of difficulty with “have to” and “must” It seems not to be easy for student to distinguish the difference between “have to” and “must” ,"don’t have to” and “must not” In fact, 65% of the students chose must to fill for item and “English children stay at school till the age of 16” “In Japan, guests leave their shoes at the door” As reviewed in the previous chapter, both “have to” and “must” are used to talk about obligation “Must” is used mostly to talk about the feelings and wishes of the speaker and hearer –for example, to give or ask for orders, “have to” is used mostly to talk about obligations that come from “outside” for example from law regulations, agreements and other people’s orders With sentence above, these are regulations It is normal to say trẻ em nớc Anh phải lại trờng lúc 16 tuổi or Nhật Bản khách phải để giày cửa As a result, the subject may have thought of “must” is the English interpretation of “ph¶i” and tried to use them inappropriately Errors of this type is believed tobe caused by mother tongue interference As far as modal verb “must” is concerned, not many students made errors in the item In fact, only 18% of the students failed to use it, the lowest percentage recorded in the table As reviewed, both “must” and “have to” are terms expressing obligation However, in this situation “must” is better when the obligation is urgent or seen important to the speaker In item number 5: you tell anyone my secret I forbid it Do you promise? 74% of the students chose “don’t have to” As explained in section 1(item 3), although “must” and “have to” both express necessity or obligation, their negative forms have different meanings:"do not have to” expresses a lack 39 of necessity and “must not” expresses prohibition “Don’t have to'” is inappropriate because it does not express prohibition required in this situation However, the subject may have thought that if “have to” denotes an obligation of doing something, then its negative from “don’t have to” will denote an obligation of not doing something and tried to use it inappropriately This is an error caused by over-generalization and mother tongue interference In conclusion, most of the errors found in this section are resulted from mother tongue interference, a small number of errors is over-generalization 2.6.4 Errors in section 4-test Table 2.4: Result of the section 4-test1 Item number Intended focal point Correct Incorrect number percentage number percentage Can(type) 78 68% 22 22% Could(solve) 87 87% 13 13% Must(read) 88 88% 12 12% May (be true) 35 35% 65 65% Mustn’t (smoke) 26 26% 74 74% This section required the student to replace each of the passages underlined by the appropriate modal auxiliary+ lexical verb Instead of the expected possible sentence:” John can type very fast “.The erroneous one has been found: “John can be typing very fast” It is obvious that the sentence above cannot demand of formal writing.Tobe capable of doing something is similar with “can something” not “can be doing something” This error might have resulted from ignorance of rule restriction However, the fact that not many students (13%) committed errors with item number 2”no one could solve the problem” might have resulted from 40 students having been exclusively exposed to this expression in their learning process and practiced a lot with it They wrote “no one can solve the problem” “can” is used to talk about present ability, “could” is used to talk past ability This error is believed tobe caused by incomplete application of rule Another type of modal verbs that triggered a lot of errors is “can” In fact, 35 students have committed errors by choosing “can” and 30 have errors chosen “must” for item "what you say be true In expressing degree of certainty in the present time “must” is used when speaker is 95% sure of the proposition, “may” less than 50% and “can” is not usually possible in affirmative sentences with this meaning In this context, a fact is given is “ it is just possible that” means that the certainty is less than 50% and “may” is the appropriate modal verb In Vietnamese, must is normally interpreted as “ch¾c ch¾n “which is used when the speaker is 100% sure of the proposition , This error is supposed tobe an interference from the Vietnamese language In the last item instead of the expected appropriate possible sentence “You must not smoke here”, the following sentences have been found You can’t smoke here You don’t have to smoke here The students who made errors may not completely understand the situation, they may not know the verb “prohibite” with mother tongue it is very normal to say Bạn hút thuốc or Bạn không dợc hút thuốc ®©y”.It is accepted in environment of native language However, this sentence is prohibition and we must use verb “must not” This error is due to be caused by mother tongue interference In conclusion, errors in this section are traced to the following causes mother tongue interference, ignorance of rule restriction and incomplete application of rule 2.6.5 General tendencies Table 2.6.5 41 Types Can Could May Have to Must Total of items 4 Total of tokens 400 300 400 400 600 correct incorrect 169 192 185 169 284 221 108 215 221 316 Percentage of errors 49.25% 50,25% 53.75% 58.25% 57.67% The exercises in test have examined the students’ ability to use appropriate modal verb The results of the students’ performance and error frequencies in each exercise have been discussed in 2.6.1,2, 2.6.2, 2.6.3, 2.6.4, above A careful analysis has been made on some specific items to establish the general tendencies of error commitment, the overall results of the students’ performance have been tabulated in table 2.5.Here “can”, “could”, “may”, “have to”, and “must” both in positive and negative The statistics in table 2.5 show that the modal verb “have to” is the most confusing one With the overall error frequency of 58, 25%.At ranks second to “must” and “may”, with the frequency of 57,67%."Can” seems to be less difficult with 49,25% 2.6.6 Translation Test In this task, students were required to translate six sentences from Vietnamese into English In general, with this type of translation test, students seem to find it more difficult than the first one We not discuss the grammatical structure of the translated sentences in this part What we pay attention to is the use of modal verb in those sentences to serve for our study When translating, the students seemed to transfer the knowledge of their mother tongue in translation, they neglect the culture difference or they may not know the norm in English 42 The sentence “Ngµy mai chóng đến nhà Anne was translated into English “tomorrow we can go to Anne"s house ” by 74 students The expected possible one is “tomorrow we may go to Anne‘s house” As reviewed in chapter 1, “May” is used to express a less than 50% certainty in the future.” May” denote factual possibility while “can” denotes theoretical possibility This situation refers to a factual possibility from the fact that we sometimes come to Anne’s house and sometimes does not than a theoretical possibility That is reason why “may” is appropriate modal verb However, the Vietnamese students may have thought of the word “co the” which is the interpretation of various English modal verb including “can” and tried to use it inappropriately This is caused by mother tongue interference In item instead of the possible expected sentence “We have to wear ao dai on Mondays”, the following typical errors sentences have been found” We must wear ao dai on Monday We can wear ao dai on Monday Both “have to” and “must” are used to express obligation but “have to” is used mostly to talk about obligation that come from outside for example from law, regulation Therefore, in this situation we use “must” because this is regulation The third sentence (ban khong duoc noi voi bi mat cua toi day Ban hua di ?) was translated into English as “you don’t have to tell anyone my secret Do you promise?” By 69 students, instead of the correct one “you mustn’t tell anyone my secret Do you promise?” The percentages of the students making errors with item are lower in comparison to those in the other items In fact, 31% of the students failed to use “may” in English They wrote “can I borrow?” and “could I borrow?” to translate the fourth sentences into English as “May I borrow you pen?” “Can”, “could” may are used to ask for permission But “may” is more formal and polite than “can” and “could” 43 26 students used “she may be sick” 25 students used “she could be sick” instead of “she must be sick” to translate the sixth sentence into English The last sentence Ngày bọn trẻ làm chúng thích most of students use modal verb “can” However, some of them still use “may” and “could” In the translation test, the grammatical error is ignored The attention is paid to the use of modal verb The student may not know the norm in English or the culture differences, so that they translate these sentences word by word Mother tongue affected student’s translation Apart from mother tongue interference, over – generalization is one of the main causes of errors committed in this section For example, students use “to infinitive” after modal verbs “I must to phone her tonight” or “we may to go to end Anne’s house” Incomplete application of rules is another cause of errors These errors focus on the wrong part of speech following the modal verb as follow: She may sick She can sick Incomplete application of rules is one of the causes of intralingual errors suggested by Richards This results from the fact that the students were too interested in efficient communication without the need for mastering the rules Instead of the bare infinitive required to follow the modal verb, the students forgot it and use adjective after a modal verb 44 Chapter 3: Implications and suggestions In this chapter, major findings of the study will be presented with the researcher questions being revisited Some implications for the teaching and learning process will be presented then 3.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS REVISITED 3.1.1 Research question 1: What errors secondary school students make in using “can”, “could”, “may”, “have to” and “must”? The results from the study show that students have a lot of difficulties in understanding the meaning of modal verbs in using modality of possibility with three modal verbs “can”, “could”, “may” They also get confused with the uses of “can”, “may”, “could” for asking permission Especially it is very difficult for students to distinguish the differences between “have to” and “must”( both 45 in negative and positive).Instead of using “have to”, most of the students used “must” to complete the task and vice versa They cannot make a clear distinction between the uses and the meanings of these modal verbs 3.1.2 Research question 2: What might be the sources of the errors in using them? After a thorough investigation, it has been found that many Vietnamese students had problems in understanding and using modal verbs “can”, “could”, “may”, “have to” and “must” A large number of errors could be traced to the following causes: mother tongue interference, over- generalization, incomplete application of rules and false concept hypothesized for intralingual errors and poor language knowledge Among them, negative mother tongue interference seems to be the biggest source of difficulties for students in their attempt to use modal verbs in English 3.1.3 Research question 3: What suggestions can be made in order to help students acquire the use of modal verbs in English? It has been found that students not understand all the use of modal verbs “can”, “could”, “may”, “have to” and “must” Further more, students sometimes are interfered by their mother tongue on their use of modal verbs Thus, more attention to modal verbs is acquired, this includes: Detailed and systematic introduction of those types of modal verbs in English; detailed discussions about the similarities and differences between modal verbs in English and in Vietnamese; designing of different tasks for students to use modal verbs “can”, “could”, “may”, “have to” and “must” in different contexts 3.2 Implications for teaching English modal verbs can, could, may, have to, and must to Vietnamese secondary students So far, it has been evidenced that Vietnamese students have a lot of difficulty in understanding modal markers, thus making a greater number of 46 errors in using them We have found errors in chapter In this chapter, some implications for teaching process will be presented with a view to solving the problems and preventing them 3.2.1 Suggestions for presentation • Modal verbs should be presented in different contexts The first matter related to the meanings of modal verbs is that an individual modal verb can have different meanings in different contexts For example, the sentence He may come has two meanings: it is possible that he comes and he is permitted to come Therefore, it is suggested that modal verbs should be presented in different contexts so that the learners could distinguish the meaning • Introduce culture factors into English lessons at school It has been proved that the difficulty of acquiring “can”, “could”, “may”, “have to” and “must” is not due to their structure, position or function in sentences but is the mater of culture differences and mother tongue interference It is suggested that during the presentation stage, the teacher should predict all negative transfers of their students’ mother tongue including those derived from culture differences and point them out to the students This requires that the teacher needs a wide and deep knowledge about the relationships between language and culture to explain the similarities and differences (between the target language and the mother tongue) in the uses “can”, “could”, “may”, “have to” and “must” For example: the teacher gives a situation “You don’t have enough money to go to a movie tonight You want to borrow some from your older brother, what would you say? “.The students may give the answer “Can I borrow some money?” The teacher should correct it as “Could I borrow your money?” or “May I borrow some money?” and give an explanation: in English both “may” and “can” could are used to request permission But “may” and “could” are equally polite “Can” is used informal In this situation, when you 47 want to borrow money from you older brother you should say in a polite and formal way • Use modal markers in production of language Students have no idea of different choices of realization except the verbal form: modal verbs Apart from the verbal form, other realization choices of non-verbal form should also be pointed out to the learners It would be ideal that the realization of non-verbal forms of the same modal domain is presented in a system of values together with the verb form For example: He must be a student (modal verb) He is certainly a student (modal adverb) It is certain that he is a student (modal adjective) In the above presentation, the meanings and values of modal verbs as well as other markers of the non- verbal form are presented in a system This will help student have different choices when they use them in communication •Avoid translating from English into Vietnamese and vice versa Since translation in presentation can lead to intralingual errors •Combine the meaning and the value in the presentation stage of the teaching process Modal verbs should be presented in proper contexts The meanings and the values of the modal verbs should not be clarified with an explanation but also be illustrated by equivalent paraphrases of the modal verbs For example: This is a dialogue between Mr John and his daughter, Mary Mary: I’d like to go out with Bob tonight Mr John: No, You must stay at home That is what I want you to Mary: That would be boring Mr John: You should something interesting Mary: Well, I like playing computer games Mr John: Ok You may use my computer in my room I am watching TV tonight 48 Teacher gives an explanation of modal verbs express obligation of different values: • Must express an strict order (high value) You must stay at home = you are strongly obliged to stay at home • Should express advisability (median value) You should something interesting= it is advisable for you to something interesting • May express permission ( low value) You may use my computer = you are allowed to use my computer The above presentation will make it easier for students to distinguish the types of meaning and determine the values and they will be able to choose a suitable modal verb to use in a certain context 3.2.2 Suggestions for practice: In the previous discussions of the findings from the study, it was noted that students had difficulties with different types of modal verbs, depending on the types of exercises they were asked to Therefore, an explicit introduction to students to various forms of modal verb would be more beneficial to students’ acquisition with the assistance of practical exercises It should be born in mind that contexts are an essential element in designing such practical exercises With a view to helping students use “can”, “could”, “may”, “have to” and “must” correctly and effectively, the following types of exercises could be adopted for training in using modal verbs They all could be adjusted, depending on the level of the learners Exercise Type 1: Circle the best answer to complete these sentences: The aim of this type is to consolidate the learner’s knowledge of the modal verbs items “Do you know where Eva is? 49 She at Barbara’s house She said something about wanting to visit after work today, but I am really not sure a must be b could be c is It rain, you’d better take a raincoat a may b can c could I am not quite ready to go, but you leave if you’re in a hurry I will meet you later a can b may c could My eyesight isn’t very good I wear glasses for reading a must b have to c can Have you noticed that professor Adams wears something green everyday? I know He like green a must b may c could Exercise type 2: Rewrite the following sentences by replacing the underlined phrase with a phrase using an appropriate modal verb The aim of this type is to increase the learner’s awareness of the availability of the various modal verbs items which can be used to avoid unnecessary repetition of known information I was never able to understand a word he said You are not allowed to tell anyone my secret Do you promise? Are you able to this without help? Yes, I’m quite sure that it is the one Exercise type 3: Choose the correct word to complete each sentence among a group of sentences of the same meaning The aim of this type is to improve the learner’s knowledge and awareness of the modal verbs items Must, required, necessary 50 a You are to take an entrance exam b You take an entrance exam c It is for you to take an entrance exam Must, certain, certainly, certainty a He be at home b It is that he is home c There is a that he is at home d He is at home may, possibly, possible, possibility a She know b She knows c It is that she knows d There is a that she knows Exercise type 4: What would you say in the following situation? The aim of this type is to train the learner in using modal verbs correctly and appropriately Ms Jackson is in the middle of the city She has lost she’s trying to find bus station She stops someone in the stress to ask for directions What would she say? Pretend that you are father of three children You allow them to play in the garden What you say? Pretend that you are teaching your younger sister/brother how to drive a car This is her/his first time behind the wheel, and she/he know litter about driving regulations and the operation of an automobile What would you say to her/him? Mark can’t understand what’s going on in his English class What you say to help him overcome the difficulty 51 Exercise type 5: Translate the following sentences into Vietnamese The aim of this type is to show the learner the relationship between the English modal verbs and their Vietnamese equivalents Chắc có lẽ anh đến Chúng học vào thứ chủ nhật Học sinh phải đeo phù hiệu vào trờng Hạnh phải thức dậy lúc 5h để học Bạn không đợc hút thuốc bệnh viện 3.2.3 Implications for production This stage will directly bring about the communicative objective of all language teaching process and should be paid great attention to and taken into consideration As the previous stage, Vietnamese students seem to fail to use modal markers in natural way An example of this is that they are inflexible in applying a wide variety of modal markers and use wrong implication of “can”, “could”, “may”, “have to” and “must” In order to overcome this limitation, the teacher should create as many real life situations as possible for students to produce language messages This can be done in both spoken form and written form Because it is drill modal verbs, free topics should be taken in Students explicitly make their own discourse in which they naturally use modal markers Through this, students get good results in employing them An example of a real situation is to tell some visitors the rules and the “mini-culture” of the class, which is a matter the students have to get involved in everyday For example: Teacher can give a situation and ask student make a small dialogue Instructions: You live in Vinh city This summer you go to Ho Chi Minh City You have been in Ho Chi Minh for a few hours Now you are looking for the way to Dam Sen Park Start like this: A: Excuse me Can you help me? B: Yes, of course A: I have just come here from Vinh city ... thorough analysis of the errors committed by Vietnamese students of English in using English modal verbs can, could, may, have to and must An analysis specializing in errors in using English modal verb. .. the errors in using modal verbs can, could, may, , must and semi -auxiliary verb ? ?have to? ?? by Vietnamese learners at TL secondary school - Find the major causes and sources of their errors and. .. teaching and learning: can, could, may, have to, and must 1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY Within the limitation of a graduation thesis, I would like to deal with modal verbs can, could, may, have to and must

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