 In this unit, we're going to be looking at modal auxiliary verbs. What are modal auxiliary verbs? Well, suppose you draw something such as this. It's quite clearly a chair, and we can make a simple sentence to convey that point. It's a chair. What if we were to use the simple class from a dictionary game, where students have to guess what you're drawing? What about this? It could be a ball. It might be the sun. Let's draw a second circle. It might be a pair of glasses. It could be a stereo radio. If we were to continue, we would say it must be a bicycle. These words that I've boxed might, could and must are called modal auxiliary verbs. They express the speaker's feeling or attitude towards this particular verb, in this case, the verb to be, and they're very subjective. In the English language, there are nine true modal auxiliary verbs. Will, would, should, shall, might, may, must, can and could. There are other modals as well. These are called semimodals, and we will be looking at the difference between true modal auxiliary verbs and semimodals briefly a little bit later on in this presentation. What are the main usages for the modal auxiliary verbs? In this course, we'll look at eleven of the major usages of modal auxiliary verbs. Let's have a look at an example of each. Let's start with ability. For example, I can ride a bicycle. Expressing my ability to ride a bicycle. Next is advice. You might say to a friend if he's ill, you should go to see a doctor about that. Deduction. Somebody comes in, they're soaking wet. It must be raining outside because he's drenched. You're deducing that it's raining outside. You might actually know. Obligation. I'm obliged to do something. I must finish this report by tomorrow morning. You might want to make an offer. Would you like anything to drink? Permission. May I leave work early today? Can I leave work early today? Could I leave work early today? And possibility. You can take a train from London to Manchester. You can buy tickets at the door or in advance. You'll see that we use can here for ability and can for possibility. We're using must for obligation and a must for deduction. So the usages are interchangeable. Now let's have a look at prediction. I think my team will win the league this year. I don't know that my team will win the league, but I'm predicting that they will. Prohibition. You mustn't smoke in here. Promise. What do people say when they get married? I will always love you. And finally, a request. Could you help me with this? There are many more uses, but these are the most common uses that you will need to cover when you're teaching English as a foreign language. Let's have a look at how we might approach teaching the modal auxiliary verb can. Initially, we introduced the word can in the context of ability. Going back to our earlier examples. I can ride a bike. You can swim. You can speak English. And then, as we progress through the levels, we introduce further usages of the same word. Typically, for elementary level students, possibility would be the next usage that is introduced. For example, you can see a movie in a cinema, as it's possible to do it. It's not about ability. Then, as you progress, further usages will be introduced, such as permission and request. An example of permission might be, can I smoke in here? And a request, can you help me with that? The distinction between the permission and request usages is quite a grey area, but nevertheless, the two are slightly different. The final usage that will be introduced might be advice. You can go to see a doctor about that. It's a very weak form of advice, suggesting that somebody does go to have something looked at, but it's completely their choice. Let's have a look at another way that we could approach teaching modal auxiliary verbs. One other approach that could be used to teach modal auxiliary verbs is in context. So, for example, how to give advice. With students of a higher level that have some knowledge of the various modal auxiliary verbs, it's more appropriate to teach in this way. So if we're talking about ways to give advice, we could start with, you should go to see a doctor, as a typical way to advise somebody to do something. If the advice was a little bit weaker than that, you could go to see a doctor. It's not important that you do, but there is some advice being offered here. Even weaker than that, which we touched on earlier, could be, you can go to see a doctor if you want to. An even stronger way of giving advice is you must go to see a doctor with that, which is strong advice. The strongest of all, perhaps when parents are disciplining children or forgiving orders, for example, is you will go to see the doctor with that. There are two main ways of approaching teaching modal auxiliary verbs. One is by selecting one modal auxiliary and one usage and focusing on that in that particular context. Another way, especially when you teach higher level students, is to choose a context such as advice and then use each of the most appropriate modal auxiliary verbs in a different way to show how the different modal auxiliary verbs can be used for various other usages, not just the most current one. Let's now have a look at difficulties that students have when learning modal auxiliary verbs. They present specific problems for both teachers and learners quite apart from the numerous difficulties associated with the myriad of usages that there are and the combination of which modal verbs can be used for which usage. There are difficulties also with the structure of sentences, for example, forming a negative. Usually, we use the auxiliary verb do with most verbs to form a negative, but with modal auxiliary verbs, we don't. So for example, I don't like swimming. Do not with the verb like. When modal auxiliary verbs are initially introduced to students, they may find it puzzling that we don't use this structure. Instead, we use this structure. Similarly, another difficulty is when the auxiliary verb do is used for questions. This isn't the case with modal auxiliary verbs. Do you can swim is incorrect as you create questions by inversion. Can you swim? Another fundamental problem for students learning English is forming positive sentences in third person singular. He likes swimming and he can swims. He swims is obviously correct, but the tendency may be to extend that to he can swims. The S is omitted here as the main verb is not conjugated when used with modal auxiliary verbs. So he can swim. Let's have a look at a couple of other problems for students. One more aspect students have trouble with is when we start to introduce what we refer to at the beginning of the presentation, which is semi-modal auxiliary verbs. An example of a semi-modal auxiliary verb is need to. Let's look at the structure of sentences when we use semi-modal auxiliary verbs, such as need to. I need to work every day, for example. Unlike true modal auxiliary verbs that don't change their form, if we use the pronoun he, in this case, we add an S. To make a negative, such as I don't need to work every day, we use the auxiliary verb do. The same with a question. Do you need to work every day? Again, we're using the auxiliary verb do. Another point that students find difficult to grasp is that modal auxiliary verbs have no tense. To express tense or time, bearing in mind that they are not the same thing, you have to use or adapt the main verb. Some modals can't be used to talk about the past or the future. Let's have a look at this sentence. You must be in class by 9.30 every day. That's an obligation. An obligation for something that you need to do regularly. If you wanted to talk about the past, students might initially feel that you can write a sentence like this. You must were in class by 9.30 every day to express an obligation in the past. That is not the case. You might think that one way of approaching that could be, you must have been in class by 9.30 every day. Unfortunately, this is now not an obligation, but a deduction. So the modal auxiliary verb must, in this case, can't be used to talk about an obligation in the past. In this case, you would use a semi-modal. You had to be in class by 9.30 every day. With had to, used to express obligation in the past. Let's have a look at the difficulties with semi-modals using had to as another example. You must be in class. Change the you to he and the must stays the same. You have to be in class. Change to he and have to changes to has to. In this session, we've covered the essential points required for you to teach modal auxiliary verbs, but always consult any materials that are appropriate to your specific teaching point. Because, as you may well have picked up, what initially appears to be quite a simple structure, using the nine true modal auxiliary verbs, can create difficulties for a lot of students when they first start to learn these. Then once you start to introduce the semi-modal auxiliary verbs, the difficulties can only increase. Now let's have a look at the active and passive voice. We have a typical sentence here. George Orwell wrote Animal Farm. This sentence is in the active voice. Now Animal Farm is in the final position of the sentence, but we could rewrite the sentence to have the exact same meaning in the same tense, but bring Animal Farm to the first position within a sentence. Let's have a look at what you've got. Does it match with this sentence here? Animal Farm was written by George Orwell. If so, pat yourself on the back and let's look at what has actually been done. First, George Orwell. He's the doer of the action. He's the subject here. We have the verb wrote, which is in the past simple form. Then we have the object, or the thing that received the action. This first sentence is the active voice. In this sentence here, Animal Farm was written by George Orwell. The active voice sentence has changed into a passive voice sentence. We've taken the object Animal Farm and put it into the first position of the sentence. Next is the auxiliary verb be, also in the past simple form. An important part of this transition is keeping the auxiliary verb be in the same tense as the active voice sentence. The next part is the past participle form of the verb. Wrote becomes written. Then we can follow it up by adding to the statement Animal Farm was written, finishing it with by George Orwell, the subject. After looking at how we change active to passive sentences, let's look at four more sentences in various tenses. We've got my uncle is designing our new kitchen, the gardener has pruned the bushes, we will prosecute trespassers, and the police caught the thief last night. Let's have a look and see how we did. The original sentence here, my uncle is designing our new kitchen, should have changed to, our new kitchen is being designed by my uncle. A good way to start the analysis is to look at the tense this sentence is written in, which is the present continuous. We know that the auxiliary verb needs to stay in that tense, so it becomes being. The verb has changed to the past participle, and the object has moved into the subject position, and the subject is in the final position, resulting in our new kitchen is being designed by my uncle. Now, the gardener has pruned the bushes. Again, we need to look at the tense, which is present perfect. Changing it to the passive voice, it becomes the bushes have been pruned. And if we choose, we could add by the gardener, although we don't have to, as it's not important. Again, it's the same tense, the present perfect, with have been. The main verb has switched to the past participle form, the object of the sentence has gone into the subject position, and the original subject has been added at the end. Next is, we will prosecute trespassers. This is in the future simple tense, which is reflected in will be. Prosecute has changed to prosecuted, which is the past participle, and the object has moved to the subject position. Because who will be doing the prosecuting is unimportant, there is no need to finish the sentence here. Finally, the police caught the thief last night, which is past simple. The object has moved to the subject position, which will have the past simple form of the verb to be, was. The main verb is now in the past participle form, and the sentence still ends with last night. We use the passive voice for the following reasons. When the agent is unknown, a man was murdered last night, who murdered the man, we don't know. When the agent is unimportant, the house was built in 1950. Who built the house? We don't really care, and it doesn't particularly matter. When we want to change the focus, Macbeth was written by Shakespeare. Rather than focusing on Shakespeare, who wrote Macbeth, we want to focus more on Macbeth, the story. Finally, we use the passive voice when we want to conceal the agent. We might say, I was told you stole my money. A teaching idea for the passive voice is something such as a pelmanism or matching game. Here we have different sentences, half of which are written in the active voice and the other half in the passive voice. The idea is for students to turn one of each over and identify whether or not they match each other. The cards will all be faced down and a student might turn over the mice are being eaten by snakes, and then the snakes were eating mice. Of course these sentences don't match and the students would turn the cards back over. The next student might turn over the mice were being eaten by snakes and the snakes were eating mice. The students should know that those two cards match and take them off the board. The game would continue until there were no cards remaining. Note that you would need to have at least 12 to 16 cards for the game to be effective. So, to recap the passive voice, we can see in our example sentence, a crocodile ate Henry. This is the active voice. It has the order, subject, plus verb, plus object. Crocodile being the subject, the verb in the past tense, ate, and then Henry as the object. This is the active voice. This sentence can also be expressed in the passive voice, as we can see here. Henry was eaten by a crocodile. Now this takes a different structure. Henry, who was the original object of the sentence, is now in the subject position. We've added the verb be here in the past tense to match the original example, and then we've taken the main verb and changed it to the past participle, eaten. We have then introduced the original subject of the sentence with the word by, so our original sentence, a crocodile ate Henry, becomes Henry was eaten by a crocodile. The main problem for students using the passive voice is to put the verb to be into the correct tense. Our example, a crocodile ate Henry, is in the past simple tense. The verb be in the passive voice sentence has to match that tense. So in the past simple, the verb be is was or were. Henry was eaten by a crocodile. Likewise, if we use the present simple, a crocodile eats Henry, we have to use the verb be in the present simple, so it becomes Henry is eaten by a crocodile. We can also have a look at a crocodile is eating Henry, which is the present continuous tense. To put this into the passive voice, we then have to say, Henry is being eaten by a crocodile. The present perfect tense, a crocodile has eaten Henry, Henry has been eaten by a crocodile, and so on. We can see that the sentences pretty much stay the same. The only thing changing here is the verb be, changing into the correct form to match the original sentence. The passive voice is particularly used when the doer of an action or the subject of an action is unknown. For example, a man was murdered last night. We don't know who committed the action. The passive is also used when the doer or subject of the action is not important. For example, my house was built 10 years ago. It's not important to the meaning of the sentence who built it. The passive voice is also used to shift the focus from the original subject to the object. If we look back to our original sentence, a crocodile ate Henry. The focus is on the crocodile. It was a crocodile that ate Henry, not a tiger or a lion. When we move this to the passive voice, we've moved the focus away from the crocodile and onto Henry.