Traian Alina-Ileana

Ghid metodologic

TECHING MODAL VERBS

 Teaching grammar means enabling students to
use linguistic forms accurately, meaningfully and
appropriately. Knowledge of grammar is essential for
competent users of a language. Obviously, for example,
they need to know that verbs in the third person singular
have an “-s” ending in the present simple (e.g. He eats,
she sings, he swims). They also need to know that
modal auxiliaries are followed by bare infinitives without
“to” so that they can eventually avoid making mistakes.
It is true that it is important to develop their
understanding of the grammatical facts of the language
we are teaching, but this is not the only thing they
should learn. It matters less to make our students learn
grammatical paradigms and syntactic rules. What we
hope to do is to cultivate linguistic performance in our
students which is consistent with the facts. In other
words, grammar teaching is not so much knowledge
transmission as it is skill development.
Grammar lessons are usually composed of three
parts: presentation, practice and communication. Before
a particular grammar structure is analyzed, a
challenging teaching point for the class of students
should be chosen. Thus, relevant practice activities will
provide the most suitable forms for the context. Students
will receive feedback on the appropriateness of their
choice. In some cases, their choice might involve
selecting from among an array of options, for example
which modal verb to use when giving advice or when
expressing possibility or probability.

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 However, our aim in teaching grammar should
be to ensure that students are communicatively efficient
with the grammar they have at their level. Students
should be aware of the fact that real language use
cannot be automatically reduced to simple grammar
patterns, as they need to be aware of all language
possibilities.
Teachers should be prepared to use a variety of
techniques to help students learn and acquire grammar.
Sometimes this involves teaching grammar rules,
sometimes it means allowing students to discover the
rules for themselves.
I think that knowledge of the grammatical rules is
essential for the mastery of a language, because you
cannot use words unless you know how they should be
put together. But the question is do we have to have
grammar exercises? Isn’t it better for learners to absorb
the rules intuitively through communicative activities
than to be taught through special exercises explicitly
aimed at teaching grammar? As far as this question is
concerned, I think that ability to communicate effectively
is probably not attained most quickly or efficiently
through pure communicative practice in the classroom –
not, at least, within the framework of a formal course of
study.
In “natural learning” – such as the learning of a
first language by a child –the amount of time and
motivation devoted to learning is so great that there is
no necessity for conscious planning of the learning
process: sooner or later the material is absorbed.
However, in a formal course of study, there is very much

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less time available, and often less motivation, which
means that learning time has to be organised for
optimum efficiency. This means preparing a programme
of study -a syllabus- so that bits of the total corpus of
knowledge are presented one after other for gradual,
systematic acquisition, rather than all at once. And it
also means preparing an organized, balanced plan of
classroom teaching/learning procedures through which
the learners will be enabled to spend some of their time
concentrating on mastering one or more of the
components of the target language on their way to
acquiring it as a whole. These components may be
things like spelling or pronunciation or vocabulary or
grammar.
Grammar, then, may furnish the basis for a set of
classroom activities during which it becomes temporarily
the main learning objective. The learning of grammar
should be seen in the long term as one of the means of
acquiring a mastery of the language as a whole, not as
an end in itself. Thus, although at an early stage we may
ask our students to learn a certain structure through
exercises that concentrate on meaningless
manipulations of language, we should quickly progress
to activities that use it meaningfully. And even these
activities will be superseded eventually by general
fluency practice, where the emphasis is on successful
communication, and any learning of grammar takes
place only as incidental to this main objective.
Before planning the organisation of our teaching,
we need to have clear in our minds exactly what our
subject-matter is: what sorts of things are included

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under the heading grammar, and what is involved in
“knowing” a structure?
Any generalisation about the “best” way to teach
grammar (what kind of teaching procedures should be
used, and in what order) will have to take into account
both the wide range of knowledge and skills that need to
be taught, and the variety of different kinds of structures
subsumed under the heading “grammar”.
Penny Ur offers some “guidelines on presenting
and explaining a new grammatical structure:
1. In general, a good presentation should include
both oral and written forms, and both form and meaning.
2. It is important for learners to have plenty of
contextualised examples of the structure and to
understand them. Visual materials can also contribute to
understanding.
3. [Terminology] will depend on your situation
and learners. On the whole older or more analytically-
minded learners will benefit more from the use of
terminology.
4. Again, [mother tongue or target language] very
much depends on your own situation and judgment.
5. [Explanation] This is the problem about
striking the right balance between accuracy and
simplicity [...]. Your explanation should cover the great
majority of instances learners are likely to encounter;
obvious exceptions should be noted, but too much detail
may only confuse. As a rule, a simple generalisation,
even if not entirely accurate, is more helpful to learners
than a detailed grammar book definition.

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 6. Speaking and writing should be clear and at
an appropriate level.
7. [Rules] You have to decide whether a rule
would be helpful or not; then, whether to elicit it from the
learners on the basis of examples (sometimes called the
“inductive” method), or give it yourself, and invite them
to produce examples (“deductive”). Like grammatical
terminology, explicit rules are helpful to older and more
analytically-minded learners. [...] If the learners can
perceive and define the rules themselves quickly and
easily, then there is a lot to be said for letting them do
so: what they discover themselves they are more likely
to remember. But if they find this difficult, you may waste
a lot of valuable class time on sterile and frustrating
guessing, or on misleading suggestions; in such cases it
is better to provide the information yourself”1.
In what follows I will refer to teaching modal
verbs in a usual grammar class. I usually begin by
presenting the class with the text in which the
grammatical structure – in our case the modal verbs
appears. The aim of the presentation is to get the
learners to perceive the modal verbs –their forms and
meanings- in both speech and writing and to take them
into short-term memory. Often a story or short dialogue
is used which appears in written form in textbooks but
sometimes they are also about the teacher and/or
students’ own experiences.
At the isolation and presentation stage I move
away from the context, and focus, temporarily, on the
1
Ur, Penny, A course in language teaching: practice and theory,
Cambridge University Press, 2008, p. 82-83

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grammatical items themselves: what they sound and
look like, what they mean, how they function –in short,
what rules govern them. The objective is that the
learners should understand these various aspects of the
modal verbs. In some classes we may need to make
extensive use of the students’ native language to
explain, translate, make generalizations and so on. In
more academic classes, or where the structures may
seem difficult for the students to grasp, this stage may
take some time. At this stage, it is very important for the
students to understand very well the forms and
meanings of the modal verbs and that is why the
explanations should be delivered very carefully by the
teacher. First, I start by presenting the main features of
the modal verbs in general, then I continue by taking
them one by one and explaining their meanings,
providing the students with a lot of examples. So,
presentation is the stage at which students are
introduced to the form, meaning and use of a new piece
of language, in our case the modal verbs. But, at the
same time, it is very used since at the presentation
stage students learn the grammar that they will need for
their most important experience of the new language –
applying it to themselves.
Sometimes the presentation takes place using
personalization immediately: the teacher uses the
students and their lives to introduce new language.
Sometimes personalization is the final part of a
presentation that is done through the use of tents or
pictures.

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 A good presentation should be clear and
students should have no difficulty in understanding the
situation or what the new language means. A good
presentation should also be efficient since the aim is to
get to the personalization stage as soon as students can
manipulate the new language. So, the more efficiently
we can do this, the better. Moreover, a good
presentation should be lively and interesting. We want
students to get interested and be involved during a
presentation stage with the help of a good situation and
of the language course. And if it is, there is a good
chance that students will remember the new grammar
more easily. Appropriateness is another characteristic of
a good presentation. However interesting, funny or
demonstrative a situation is, it should be appropriate for
the language that is being presented. In other words it
should be a good vehicle for the presentation of
meaning and use. Lastly, a good presentation should be
productive. In other words the situation the teacher
introduces should allow students to make many
sentences and/or questions with the new language.
I will give an example here. It is not enough to go
to a class where you will teach modal verbs, advanced
level, with a list of “must” and “mustn’t”. They read the
list and will not remember much after the class. I went to
a class with a three-minute video presenting them a
student going to a new school. She was wearing total
inappropriate clothes for school and she experienced
some unhappy situations because of that. And another
student was shown cheating on a test and the
consequences of him being caught were shown also.

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The impact was huge. They laughed and they talked
and talked about the situations, giving advice, what they
should have done or not if they had been them. So,
instead of showing them a list including:
Students must not wear indecent clothes at
school.
Students must not smoke at school.
Students must not cheat on tests. etc., showing
them some real-life situations containing the desired
grammatical structure proves to be a better choice.
As far as explanation is concerned, teachers
frequently explain new grammar. The explanation might
well present problems to a lot of students, because of
the technical words being used, and because abstract
grammar explanations are always quite difficult to
swallow. Of course, said in the students’ mother tongue
it would be a lot more comprehensible. But we want to
be careful about the amount of mother tongue that we
use in the English class. In general it seems that
grammar explanations for beginners and elementary
students are better handed with more obvious
techniques, such as isolation and demonstration. Of
course this is not always the case, and where a rule is
easy to explain at the students’ level, then clearly an
explanation would be appropriate.
In the case of modal verbs an explanation
provided in the students’ mother tongue would be
appropriate since there is an important difference
between the English modal verbs and the Romanian
moods. Adriana Vizental presents a logical path to be

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followed when dealing with translating modals in
Romanian:
“e.g. A trebuit să lucrăm până târziu.
1. Cine? – Noi – We
2. A trebuit – obligation – must
3. Când? – Past – had to
We had to work until late. [...]
e.g. Va putea să conducă o maşină când va
avea 18 ani.
1. Cine? – Ea – She
2. Va putea – permission – may
3. Când? – Future – will be allowed to
She will be allowed to drive a car when she is
18.”2
The discovery technique is another way of
presenting efficiently the new grammar structures. The
discovery techniques are those where students are
given examples of language and told to find out how
they work – to discover the grammar rules rather than
be told them. The students are exposed to the new
language, with no focus, at the same time before it is
presented. At a more conscious level, students can be
asked to look at some sentences and say how the
meaning is expressed and what the differences are
between the sentences. As students puzzle through the
information and solve the problem in front of them, they
find out the grammar rule. The advantages of this
approach are clear. By involving the students’ reasoning
2
Vizental, Adriana, Metodica predării limbii engleze: strategies of
teaching and testing English as a foreign language, Ed. a 3-a rev.,
Iaşi, Polirom, 2008, p. 198-199

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processes in the task of grammar acquisition, we make
sure that they are concentrating fully, using their
cognitive powers. We are also ensuring that our
approach is more student-centered: it’s not just the
teacher telling the students what the grammar is. They
are actually discovering the information for themselves.
Of course these techniques are not suitable for
all students on all occasions. Discovery activities can
take a long time and can occasionally be confusing. The
teacher should decide when to use these activities, with
what grammar, and with which students.
For modals, this technique is better used with
intermediate and advanced students rather than with
beginners.
As a conclusion, encouraging students to
discover grammar for themselves is one valuable way of
helping them to get to grips with the language. Very
often this discovering of grammatical facts involves
students in a fairly analytical study of the language.
Teachers will have to decide how much of this kind of
material is appropriate for their students, but one thing is
certain: the use of discovery techniques can be highly
motivating and extremely beneficial for their students’
understanding of English grammar. So then the question
is whether these techniques are particularly time-
consuming. Obviously reading a text takes time, but
teachers should remember that the students will get
reading practice as well as focusing on the grammar. So
the time is not really a problem. What is much more
important is whether teachers feel happy with these
techniques and whether or not they suit the students.

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 After a period of grammar presentation the
practice stage consists of a series of exercises done
both in the classroom and for home assignments, whose
aim is to cause the learners to absorb the structures, i.e.
to transfer what they know from short-term to long-term
memory. Obviously, not every grammar practice
procedure can cover all aspects of the structures,
therefore we shall need to use a series of varied
exercises which will complement each other and
together provide thorough coverage. Generally, the
activities are designed so that the students practise the
language while at the same time being involved in an
enjoyable activity. Students need to practise their
grammar a lot. Where possible this will be done in pairs
using interaction activities and so on. But, where drills
are used, the teacher must always remember that they
are only a means to an end. As soon as possible they
should be abandoned in favour of one of the creative
activities.
As we have seen, practice is an important part in
the process of learning a structure because the function
of a practice procedure is to familiarise learners with the
material, not to introduce it. This is why learners should
not be asked to practise material they have not yet been
taught. It is very important for the teachers not to launch
into practice activities in the classroom without sufficient
initial presentation of the material. If effective pre-
learning has not taken place prior to the practice – if the
material has not been clearly perceived and taken into
short-term memory by the learners – then much time will
be wasted on incomprehension or unacceptable

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responses, forcing the teacher to interrupt the procedure
for explanations and corrections, and lessening the time
available for real practice. If we refer to success-
orientation, we might say that practice is most effective if
it is based on more or less successful performance, and
practice activities should be designed and presented in
such a way as to make it likely that learner responses
will be acceptable. Besides immediate efficiency of
practice, this principle of success-orientation has wider
pedagogical implications, no less important. A student
whose performance is consistently successful will
develop a positive self-image as a language learner,
whereas one who frequently fails will be discouraged
and demotivated. It should also be noted that tension
and anxiety are fairly high if learners feel there is a
possibility of “failure” (that is, if they are in a sense being
tested), and are correspondingly lowered if they are
confident of success. Thus, success-orientation
contributes significantly to a positive classroom climate
of relation, confidence and motivation. On the other
hand, the fact that there is no risk of failure in producing
acceptable language lessens the challenge of the
activity for some participants, so we have to find other
ways of making it interesting.
Having presented the practice task, we then
need to make sure that our students do in fact perform it
successfully and get through as much volume of
language as possible and maintain interest. There
should be very little correction of mistakes if there has
been proper pre-learning, and if the exercise is really
success-oriented. Teacher activity in the course of the

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practice should therefore be largely directed towards
supporting and assisting the students in their production
of acceptable responses rather than towards assessing
and correcting. Examples of such assistance are: simply
giving extra time to reread or think; repeating or
simplifying a text; approving the beginning of an
utterance in order to encourage production of the whole;
suggestions, hints, prompts. All this means that we have
to be very alert to sense when and where help is
needed and what form it should take. Again, there is a
wider message: I, the teacher, am here to help you, the
learner, succeed and progress in your learning, not to
judge, scold or make you feel inferior.
It may be agreed that if we constantly help our
students to get it right, we will never know if they can
manage by themselves or not. Part of the answer to this
is, of course, that we should be sensitive enough to feel
when they are going to be able to produce acceptable
utterances on their own, and not rush in to help
unnecessarily. If, on the other hand, we let them get it
wrong and then correct, there will have been virtually no
practice: only a brief test, followed by a re-presentation
of the correct form.
It is very important to know that a well-designed
grammar practice activity should be based on a task that
has clear objectives and entails active use of the
structure being practised; and it should maintain learner
interest and motivation through careful choice of topic,
use of information-gap procedures, role play,
personalisation etc.

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 But much of the effect of all this may be lost on a
large proportion of the class if we do not do something
to ensure maximum, balanced participation of its
members. The way learners are activated when
performing an exercise, moreover, may affect not only
the amount of participation, but also the level of
motivation and involvement, and the learning value of
the practice given. We all know that the main techniques
of learner activation available to the teacher have both
advantages and disadvantages for various teaching
situations or kinds of practice activities. Some
techniques are based on language reception with little or
no learner response and it is the teacher who does
most, if not all, of the language production, and clearly
controls what little learner activity there is. In one-to-one
teacher-student exchanges (probably the most common
form of classroom activation) the teacher is still
dominant, but there is increasingly active participation
on the part of the learners. This participation increases
still further in brainstorming (the students are given a
single stimulus which serves as the cue for a large
number of responses) or “chain” techniques (instruction
and a initial cue are given by the teacher, resulting in a
large number of responses by the learners, but only the
first response is related to the original cue, the rest of
the utterances being made in response to the one
before); and in the most forms of pair or group work,
nearly all the actual learning production is in the hands
of the learners, the teacher merely providing instructions
and materials and acting as monitor and helper.

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 After learning, errors occur. But they are just
evidence that progress is being made, that students use
the language, try out new ides, attempt to communicate.
Analysing errors made shows us the level the student
has reached and helps us plan future language work.
The teacher has to indentify what kind of error has been
made (grammatical, lexical, etc), if it is useful to deal
with it, when to correct it, who makes the correction
(teacher, students) and which technique to use. For
grammar, immediate correction is allowed. We cannot
let students keep on using the wrong modal too long for
lack of obligation, for example: I mustn’t hurry to the
11:00 a.m. meeting as it is only 9 a.m. now – instead of I
needn’t hurry or I don’t have to hurry.
Instead of just telling the students what the error
is, we may let them know there is an error in his/her
sentence, or use facial expression (surprise, raised
eyebrows, etc.), or use finger correction, or ask a
question (Why don’t you need to hurry to that
meeting?”), or use student – student correction, or write
the problem sentence on the blackboard to discussion.
Of course, there are many ways of doing it, and Harmer
and Scrivener, as well as many others, have written a lot
about it, giving useful examples and clues for it.
Finally, testing grammar is the last important part
in the grammar teaching process.
Learners do tests in order to demonstrate – to
themselves and to the teacher- how well they have
mastered the material they have been learning. The
main objective of tests within a taught course is to
provide feedback, without which neither teacher nor

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learner would be able to progress very far. We have to
know where we are in order to know where to go next.
Formal examinations, usually preceded by revision on
the part of the learners, and followed by written
evaluation on the part of the teacher, are only one kind
of testing, useful for immediate teaching purposes. Most
testing, however, is done automatically and almost
unconsciously by teacher and learners as the course
proceeds, the most valuable feedback on learning being
supplied by the learners’ current performance in class
and in home assignments. Often practice exercises are
used to supply such informal feedback, in which case
they may function virtually as tests.
The discussion above refers mostly to grammar
classes in general. The first lesson plan I have chosen
tries to use these theoretical ideas by presenting a
model of teaching the modal verbs in a usual grammar
class. The lesson plan is designed for the 9 th form,
intermediate level. I have chosen to present all the
modal verbs and their features during the same class
since the students will get a wide picture of what this
special verb class means. I consider that this way of
teaching the modal verbs is more successful than
presenting them one by one during different grammar
classes. One reason could be that some modal verbs
are easily understood by the learners and their repeated
presentation in differing drills would be boring. So, after
a presentation of the modal verbs in general, there will
be plenty of time to practise them in order to make
students use the correct form of the modal verbs in a
certain context, to express obligation, necessity

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permission, probability, possibility, advice etc. The
practice stage can take place during four or five classes
and after this drilling period a written test would be
appropriate.
Discrete-point items are widely used for
grammar: multiple-choice, dual choice, matching
elements, arranging elements, joining elements, blank
completion, transformation/conversion, replacing
elements, adding elements, language traps. Multiple-
choice items, typically with four possible answers, only
one being correct, are used to give further practice and
also in short progress tests given at the beginning or at
the end of the lesson.
Another of the discrete-point items is the dual
choice one, used to assess the correct form (the task is
similar to multiple-choice, but only two options are
given), true or false, same or different:
- Choose the correct answer:
1. We …… cross the street until the light is
green.
a. must b. must not c. may d. might

2. You …… listen to me when I’m talking to you !

a. can b. need c. might d. may
3. If you …… meet her tell her to ring me up.
a. should b. can c. will d. shall
4. He …… the train because he left home very
early.
a. can’t have missed b. can’t miss
c. mustn’t miss d. wouldn’t have missed
5. She suggested that they …… leave at once.

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 a. must b. may c. can d. should

- Underline the correct form:

Various reasons (may/can) be found for the rapid
destruction of tropical forests: a particular country
(may/can) need more land to grow food or it’s economy
(may/can) depend on export of wood. Whatever the
reasons, the results are easy to predict – many types of
animals (must/have to) disappear and large areas of
land (should/could) become deserts, as the soil is
exhausted. In the long term this (could/has to) lead to a
serious reduction of oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere.

- Read the following sentences and decide if

they are true or false:
1. You mustn’t drive if you have had more than two
glasses of wine.
2. You don’t have to wear seat belts in the back of
the car.
3. You are allowed to drive a motorbike at any age.
4. You shouldn’t use a mobile phone while driving.
5. You must have insurance in case your car is
stolen.

- Are the sentences the same or different:

1. Tom could read when he was four./Tom was able to
read when he was four.
2. You may be right./ You are absolutely right.
3. I didn’t have to wait too much./ I needn’t wait too
much.

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4. You ought to have a rest now./ You should have a
rest now.

Arranging elements means putting jumbled

words, sentences or paragraphs in the right order to
form coherent discourses.
- Put the words in the correct order to form
coherent sentences:
1. she/ her kitchen/ clean and tidy/ keep/ should.
2. she/ shouldn’t/ on / let/ children/ climb/ the
kitchen furniture.
3. on Friday/write/will/ you/ have to/ the test.
4. your attention/ may/ please/ I/ have?
5. eighteen/ you/ drive/ are/ can’t/ until/ you.

Blank completion is used to check useful

grammatical or lexical problems and also to assess the
acquisition of the newly acquired information.
- Fill in the blanks (with one suitable modal
verb):
1. It ________ be him – he’s in Spain this week. He
_________ have a twin brother, I suppose.
2. Come in and sit down. You ________ be tired
after the journey.
3. Who’s this letter from? It _________ be from
Paul – he never writes letters.
4. The exam results should be out soon. It
__________ be this week or it _________ be
next week.
5. She always gets such good grades at school.
She ______ work very hard.

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 Transformation or conversion means rewriting
sentences according to certain criteria (singular to
plural, direct to indirect speech etc.) or paraphrasing.
- Make sentences with the same meaning as
the following, using the words in brackets:
1. Tom ought to listen to his parents. (should)
Tom should listen to his parents.
2. It’s very important for us to be in good physical
condition. (must)
3. You can live with your family when you are
promoted. (allowed)
4. It’s not necessary to wear the uniform in the
evenings. (have)
5. It’s a good idea to take your umbrella. (should)

Adding elements: students may be asked to

continue the sentence using their imagination or a given
structure.
- Continue the sentences using modals:
1. Tom Hughes graduated first in his class. He must
...
2. The car has broken down yesterday. You .....
3. There are no cakes left. The children ....
4. Paul is working late again. He .....
5. Mr. Brown is the most honest person I have ever
met. He ....

Language traps can be used when students are

familiar with the required structure, so that they could
spot and correct the mistakes in the sentences.

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 - Underline and correct the mistake (if any):
1. They don’t must smoke at work.
2. If I see Tom, I could to ask him to help me.
3. You mayn’t use dictionaries during the
examination.
4. Would you like a cup of tea?
5. Ana ought lose some weight.
Discrete-point items test isolated items of
vocabulary, grammar or meaning, while global-
integrative ones assess several aspects of the learning
process at the same time. Some of the most popular
integrative testing techniques are: the cloze procedure,
improved multiple choice, dictation and information
transfer.
The cloze procedure employs a full text in which
some words, parts of words or specific information has
been deleted. They are easy to create and to assess.
Students usually likes this kind of exercises as they are
very interesting.
- Fill in the blanks with the appropriate modal
verb:
mustn’t, may be, must be, will have to, might be, should,
can, must, might
A: “What’s the matter? Why have you stopped?”
B: “There’s something wrong. It isn’t going
properly.”
A: “Let’s have a look.”
B: “We _________ out of petrol, I suppose.
A: “We ________ out of petrol. We only got
some half an hour ago.”

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 B: “Well, if there is something wrong, _____ you
put it right, do you think?”
A: “Give me a chance. I don’t know what the
trouble is yet.”
B: “Look at this steam. The engine _______ be
too hot.”
A: “Don’t take the cap off the radiator. You
________do that. You will get boiling water all over you.”
B: “If it’s too hot, we ________ wait until it cools
down.”
A: “And how long might that take?”
B: “We ______ wait about half an hour before we
go on.”
A: “I suppose there _______ something else
wrong with it.”
B: “We passed a garage about a mile back. I
suppose they _______ come and have a look at it if we
ask them.”

- Complete the job description with a word

from the box:
got, have, must, should, supposed

We _____________ go at the weekend, but we don’t

_______________ to work every day during the week.
We’re __________ to have a special diet and we
__________ go to bed early, especially if we’ve
__________ to play a match the next day. But not
everyone does.

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 - Read the letter and circle the best modal in
each sentence:
“Dear Mary,
I need to/will do something about the chief of my
department but I don’t know what to do. My problem is
that he is a bully and that I should/may protect the
employees he’s bullying. I mustn’t/ can’t decide what is
the best thing to do. My sister says I must/will report him
to a senior manager, but I must/could lose my job. I
know I shouldn’t/wouldn’t ignore the situation. I
would/will talk to him about it, but then he should/might
start bullying me, too. Shall/Could you give me some
advice about what I have to/can do without risking my
own situation?
Yours desperately,
Peter”

- Choose the modal which makes sense in the

context:
Various reasons (may/can) be found for the rapid
destruction of tropical forests: a particular country
(may/can) need more land to grow food or it’s economy
(may/can) depend on export of wood. Whatever the
reasons, the results are easy to predict – many types of
animals (must/have to) disappear and large areas of
land (should/could/must) become deserts, as the soil is
exhausted. In the long term this (could/should/has to)
lead to a serious reduction of oxygen in the earth’s
atmosphere.

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 Subjective (or direct) items can also be used to
check the students’ understanding and their ability to
use the modals in sentences, paragraphs and
discourses of their own: translation from and into the
target language, oral/written compositions, oral
interviews – comprehensive questions).
Translation exercises (subjective items) from
Romanian into English and viceversa can also be used
to assess the comprehension of the acquired structure.
Although translations are not very much used in
teaching English, I consider that sometimes are
necessary. Modality is not expressed in the same way in
English and in Romanian, so translation becomes more
difficult. Translations from English to Romanian are also
used to make students aware of the uses of modals in
English.

- Translate into English expressing possibility:

E posibil ca familia lui să nu ştie că este implicat
într-o afacere dubioasă.
S-ar putea să petrecem vacanţa de iarnă la
munte.
Mă întreb dacă-şi dă seama de consecinţe.
Presupun că este conştient de răspunderea pe care şi-o
asumă.
Ce are aparatul de nu cantă? Nu ştiu, s-o fi
stricat.
Poate îl vedem sâmbătă la petrecerea pe care o
va da Alina.
Nu se poate să aibă ceva de obiectat.

25
 Au anunţat că e posibil ca vremea să se
răcească.
Trebuie să ne grăbim; ne-o fi aşteptând unchiul
George.
S-ar putea să fie acasă, deşi mă cam îndoiesc;
de obicei lucrează până târziu în laborator.

- Translate into Romanian:

1. Teenagers don’t have to pay the bills.
2. Parents mustn’t do the homework.
3. On Saturday I needn’t wake up early.
4. Children shouldn’t do the housework.
5. Tom really must stop smoking.

Structure-based discourse composition: students

should have a discussion or write a paragraph according
to a given task; they are directed to use at least some
examples of the structure within the discourse.
Examples:
1. The students are given a dilemma situation:
“You have seen your best friend cheating in an important
test”. Teacher asks the students to recommend a
solution and directs them to use modal verbs (might,
should, must, can etc.) in their speech/writing.
2. The students are given a situation: Ana has to
go to a party to her friend’s swimming pool in the open
and she needs new clothes and a swimming suit.
Teacher asks them to write a dialogue between Ana and
a shop assistant, using as many modals as possible
(would, could, might, must etc.).

26
 There could be more activities for free discussion
using the modal verbs.
- Games and their rules
Use of may, may not, can, can’t, must, mustn’t to
define rules; free composition of sentences; oral or
written.
Procedure: a) Choose a game that the students
all know. Write up on the board some basic facts about
it: the number of players, objective, equipment, amount
of time and space needed. Give some basic vocabulary
essential to a description of the game. Then invite
students to list its rules, using modals such as may, may
not, can, can’t, must, mustn’t. They may write down
rules and later read them out, or go straight into oral
suggestions.
or b) Divide students into groups, and give each
group a different well-known game; ask them to write
down as many rules as they can think of in ten minutes
on a sheet of paper. They then exchange papers, and
correct and add to each other’s list. And so on, until all
groups have seen all papers. When you have checked
the results these may be copied out and displayed.

- Advice for a new person

Use of all modal verbs to give advice; composing
affirmative, negative and interrogative sentences; oral or
written.
Procedure: a) ask students to write down a piece
of advice they would give to a student – or teacher –
entering the course or the school, for the first time: the

27
kind of things they should or shouldn’t do, or must or
mustn’t do.
You must come to work on time.
You shouldn’t make private phone calls on the
office phone.
The teacher helps individuals with new
vocabulary as needed. Then hear their suggestions, list
them on the board, and decide with them which are the
most important three pieces of advice.
or b) Ask each student to tell you one field of
interest, or hobby, or profession, which he or she knows
quite a lot about and could give advice on. Then each
student chooses two of these topics that they know little
or nothing about, but are interested in, and prepares
some questions to ask about them. Questions might
begin with phrases like:
Must I…….?
Can one…..?
Should I…..?
Might you….?
After about ten minutes of preparing questions,
students then go to the “experts” in the class to find out
the answers. Later, students describe, orally or in
writing, interesting things they have heard about the
various topics.
- Make a list of the unwritten rules a guest
must observe. Begin with: When you want to visit some
friends, you must:1) call your friend up and announce
your visit,2) bring presents, etc., and you mustn’t:1)
come unannounced etc..

28
 - A friend of yours has invited you to his
party the next weekend. Write him a letter announcing
him you cannot go and give your reasons. Use as many
modals as possible (80 words).
- An English pen pal is preparing to take a
trip to Romania and would like to know something about
Romanians living in different regions of the country and
their traditional dishes. Write a letter and include at least
five sentences with modal verbs and five sentences with
modal verbs equivalents in the past. (150 words).
According to the errors found or to what the
teacher considers that needs practising, the types of
exercises should be varied so that the students are not
bored. Real-life situations should be used, thus
emphasizing the occurrence of modals in every day life.
Here are some other exercises that could be used for
students to have further practice:
- Match the descriptions written below with
the procedures/images they describe. The descriptions
should each contain a modal verb. The images or
procedures used should be general, not very specific.
(e.g. Workers should wear a helmet on the site. – Safety
procedure). It is a reading exercise assessing their
acquired knowledge about modals and their use in real-
life situations.
- Asking for obligation
Read the passage below. Then imagine you are
Mrs. Scribbs’s son or daughter. Ask her if you really
must do all the things she wants you to do.
Ex.: Do I really have to get up before 8 o’clock?

29
 Mrs. Scribbs would like her children to follow a
strict timetable. This is why she tells them: “You must
get up not later than 8 o’clock. You are expected to have
breakfast with me and your father. Then I want you to do
your holiday homework for at least an hour. After lunch
you shall take a short walk with me while your father has
a rest. After the walk you should do more studying”.
- Change the following sentences using modal
verbs:
Mr. Brown has permission to make a call.
It is advisable for him to change the room.
The manager is obliged to settle the complaint.
It is necessary for all visitors to register with the
reception desk.
He asked: “Do you want me to help you with
your luggage?”
I guess she will leave at 3.30.
Perhaps they don’t know how to arrange trips.
Evidently she is in this hotel.
Is it possible for him to be so late?
- Expressing obligation
Change the sentences to the tense given in
brackets:
My car wouldn’t start, so I had to call a taxi.
(present)
Jane must go back home. (present perfect)
My father is so sick that I need to take him to
hospital at once. (simple past)
It’s her birthday soon. We’ve got to buy her a
present. (future with will)

30
 - In some of the following sentences either
could or was able could be used. In others only
was/were able is possible. Fill in the spaces and put to
where necessary before the infinitives:
He was very strong; he………ski all day and
dance all night.
The car plunged into the river. The driver
……….get out but the passengers were drowned.
I had no key so I………….lock the door. (neg.)
I knew the town so I……….advise him where to
go.
At five years old he…………..read quite well.
We …………borrow umbrellas; so we didn’t get
wet.
- Fill the spaces by inserting the correct form of
may.
It ……rain, you’d better take a coat.
……..I borrow your umbrella?
If we wave to him he ……..give us a lift.
He …….be on the next train.
You ought to buy now; prices………..go up.
- must, can’t, needn’t with the perfect infinitive.
Fill the spaces in the following sentences by
using one of these forms + the perfect infinitive of the
verb in brackets.
I wonder who broke the wineglass; it ………….
(be) the cat for she was out all day.
He………….(escape) by this window because it
is barred.
I………… (give) 10$. 5$ would have been
enough.

31
 I left my bicycle here and now it’s gone.
Someone …………..(borrow) it.
I have just watered the roses. You…….(water)
them. Look, it’s raining now!
- Agree with the conclusions using “might”,
“must” and “can’t”:
He’s possibly a farmer.
I’m sure he’s a journalist.
Perhaps he’s working late.
I’m certain she doesn’t have a job.
I’m sure she isn’t in the office at the moment.
Maybe she’s stuck in the traffic.
- Complete the sentences using “had better”,
“should” or “ought”:
He …… got up earlier. By ten to nine, he ……
been walking to the station, not still eating his breakfast.
And since he was late getting up he …… had such a big
breakfast. He really …… been surprised to see he had
missed the train, ..... he? Tomorrow he …… get up at
eight o’clock, …… he ?
- Julie was late at a job interview. What
possible explanations do the interviewers think of?
Rephrase using “may”/”might”:
Perhaps she is ill. (She may be ill.)
Perhaps her train is late.
Perhaps she doesn’t know the way.
Perhaps there is a traffic jam.
It’s just possible she has a good reason.
There is a slight possibility that she doesn’t want
the job after all.
Maybe she feels the salary is too low.

32
 - Express possibility using may, might, can,
could:
One …… make mistakes when taking hasty
decisions.
We …… go to Iaşi next week.
He …… come any moment; it’s lunch time.
He …… not know what will come out of that.
She …… not know her husband is involved.
He …… have been kept at the office till late.
They …… have come to an agreement, but I
don’t think so.
- Express possibility using “may”:
Am I allowed to wait here?
He will possibly come the second.
Perhaps he will agree on setting up that
association.
Are we permitted to look through these reviews?
It is possible that he is in the reading room.
It is likely to snow next week, do you think?
Maybe he knows that there is no accommodation
near the colleges at this time of the year.
Do you think that they are away?
- Express possibility using may or might:
It is possible that she will turn up any moment.
Perhaps she is with the other members of the
club, though I’m not sure.
I wonder what has become of him. I suppose he
has become a teacher as I knew he was very good at
English and French.

33
 It is possible that it will be sunny and warmer
next week, but I rather doubt because it is snowing in
the mountains.
- Complete the sentences with conclusions
and advice, using “must”, “can’t”, “may”, “may not”,
“should” and “shouldn’t” once each. Add “have” when
necessary:
It ……. rained for a long time.
These people …… eaten for weeks.
They …… be helped as soon as possible.
This oil …… come from a ship.
In the future, the world …… depend on the sea
for food.
Man …… pollute the sea in this way.
- A great crater was created during an
explosion which destroyed a large area. Rewrite the
opinions below using modals:
Perhaps something from space caused it.
It’s possible that a comet hit the earth.
The explosion was certainly very powerful.
It’s obvious there was some great natural
disaster.
- One modal can often have several
possible meanings. Two possible paraphrases are given
after each sentence. Decide which is the correct one:
Little children can be very noisy.
a. Noise is a possibility when little children are
around.
b. Making noise is a skill that little children have.
Customers may have their cars in the car park
behind the shop.

34
 a. Customers have permission to leave their cars
in the car park.
b. There is a possibility that customers will leave
their cars in the car park.
Paul has a class until eight o’clock, so he may
not get here in time.
a. He doesn’t have permission to get here in
time.
b. There’s a possibility he won’t get here in time.
Stephen should pass his exams.
a. It is probable that Stephen will pass his
exams.
b. Stephen has an obligation to pass his exams.
- Choose the right form of the verbs in
brackets:
He ……ride a bike when he was five. (can/could)
My sister …… type all kinds of messages.
(can/could)
This suitcase is so heavy that I …… carry it.
(can/cannot/could)
Years ago he was so strong that he …… work all
day long. (can/could)
Yesterday a man stopped me in the street and
asked me something, but as he …… only speak
German, I … help him. (can/cannot/could/couldn’t)
- Fill in correctly:
mustn’t, mustn’t, should, should, don’t have
to, doesn’t have to, shouldn’t, shouldn’t
1. You ______________ finish the exercise now.
You can finish it at home.

35
 2. James _______________ go to church if he
doesn’t want to.
3. You ______________ sorry to your teacher for
being late. It’s only polite.
4. You _______________ smoke. It kills you.
5. You _______________ eat so many
hamburgers. It is not healthy.
6. You ______________ be cruel to your brother.
It’s very unkind.
7. Mary ______________ learn more. Her results
are not very good.
8. If you want to lose weight, you
_______________ eat pasta, potatoes and white
bread.

Assessment of results is important, as I have

already said before. It is a very important part of the
teaching process and a logical consequence of testing;
both the teacher and the learners have a concrete
measure for their results.
Yet testing cannot be separated from the
teaching-learning process. “... in fact, it is one of the
teacher’s major instruments to promote learning; with
the help of various testing items (exercises), the
students practice, and thus learn, the new material.
Periodically, though, the teacher must set up more
comprehensive tests, meant to assess and evaluate the
students’ knowledge and skills at the certain stage in the
learning cycle.”3
3
ibidem, Vizental, Adriana, Metodica predării limbii engleze:
strategies of teaching and testing English as a foreign language, Ed.

36
 Testing gives the teacher accurate feedback
regarding the students’ performance, their progress and
difficulties encountered, and regarding the efficiency of
their own work. The students can see how functional
their knowledge of the language is, they are appreciated
for their performances. Self-evaluation can also be used
by the teacher, the students are helped to assess their
performances themselves, according to precise criteria
supplied by the teacher.
“Instead of “just grading” the students the way
s/he considers fit, the teacher should first try to find
answers to questions, such as: when to test the student,
what to focus on in each test, what kind of items to
include, how to formulate each item, the duration of the
test, how to assess the results, how to continue the
teaching activity in the light of the results obtained, etc.”4
Traditional test were mostly written. At present,
modern tests include also speaking and listening items.
According to the three stages of the learning
process, there are five basic types of tests: placement
tests (at the beginning of the learning process),
progress, diagnostic and achievement tests (during it)
and proficiency test (after it).
Finding good exercises for each test is not a
problem. There are plenty of exercises in textbooks and
students’ books. For English as a foreign language, it is
much easier than for other foreign languages, as there

a 3-a rev., Iaşi, Polirom, 2008, p. 307

4
Ibidem, Vizental, Adriana, Metodica predării limbii engleze:
strategies of teaching and testing English as a foreign language, Ed.
a 3-a rev., Iaşi, Polirom, 2008, p. 307

37
are a lot of grammar books and exercise books on the
market, many written by native authors, and there are a
lot of resources on the internet, like
www.onestopenglish.com, www.teachingenglish.org.uk,
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org,
www.usingenglish.com, www.englishexercises.org, etc.
but selecting them and putting them together to form a
complex relevant test is more difficult and time-
consuming.
For modals, placement tests can be 15-20
minutes long. They test grammar exclusively or may
even include writing tasks. For high school students,
placement tests are necessary when we introduce
grammar structure. They have already studied basic
modal verbs (can, may, must, should) in elementary
school, so placements tests help me as a teacher to see
how much they remember about them and how students
include them in their own production. It is a starting point
for the teacher’s way of teaching. The strategy may be
different if the structure is the same because of the
different level of classes of students. The placement test
below is for 9th grade students, pre-intermediate.

38
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39
Ştefănescu, Ioana, Lectures in English Morphology,
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http//:grammar.about.com
http://www.audioenglish.net
http://en.wikipedia.org
www.docstoc.com, Course paper, Expression of
necessity in English language
www.assets.cambridge.org, Olga Fischer, Ans Van
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http://www.usingenglish.com/files/pdf/modals-review.pdf

40