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I am modeling this approach after my experience of an advanced-level German class taken in Germany, in which all students had prior knowledge of modal verbs and their uses, and the lecture served as a comprehensive overview and comparison of all possible German modal verbs. I recall this lesson fondly as one of the most memorable language classes I have experienced—including my experiences both as a language learner and as a language teacher—in a classroom setting. First let us make some assumptions about the target audience. Let the students have an intermediate or advanced level, so that they have been exposed to and are familiar with all modal verbs, thought they may not however be familiar with all of the uses of each modal verb (for example: a less common use of ‘would’ is to describe a habitual or repeated past action. The students would recognize the modal verb ‘would’ but may only be able to produce speech of this verb in other uses). The students have several native languages, and thus the lingua franca is English (of course this is less and less relevant as students approach a more advanced level of English and their fluency in English improves). The last condition I would like to set is the dialect of English: I speak and teach standard American English with minimal Midwestern influence. With the aforementioned class in mind, I would suggest approaching teaching modal verbs sorted semantically as opposed to lexically, as they are organized in the 120 hour TEFL training course materials (Unit 18, page 2). Organizing the modal verbs first by communication goal, and only thereafter lexically, places emphasis on meaning and communication, much like the list of example sentences using modal verbs on page 4 of the Unit 18 text. Conversely, organizing the modal verbs like the TEFL training course materials on page 2 would send the message to the students that they must memorize a handful of meanings or usages for each modal verb, instead of learning a handful of ways to express a similar idea, varying in degree and formality. An example of this would be the lesson topic and communicative goal, “how to make plans with a friend.” This lesson would incorporate the modal verbs “could” and “would (+ rather),” as well as other language patterns involved in making plans such as “how about we…” and “why don’t we…” These two formulae express a suggestion without using a modal verb. Another of example of this could be incorporated into a “study” stage of a lesson using the “Engage, Study, Activate” model, where the lesson topic is “how to politely enter and leave an engagement.” For the latter portion (leaving), the list of sentences on page 4 of the Unit 18 lesson text would be the best resource, reading (a) “I’ve got to go,” (b) “I have to go,” (c) “I should go,” (d) “I’d better go,” and (e) “I’d rather go.” As the teacher I would elicit from the students some or all of these modal verbs associated with the action of leaving an engagement. Following that, I would arrange them by urgency, politeness, and frequency, which may look like the following: (a > b > c > d > e), (a = b > d > c > e), and (b > c > d > a > e), respectively. Of course these lists may look different were the author British, but I can only speak for my own experience as an American English speaker. Between the explanation of my inspiration for selecting this topic, the conditions I would set as the target classroom for these examples, and the two aforementioned examples, I would hope my approach to teaching modal verbs to intermediate and advanced students is clear and understandable. I have personally never taught this topic to a group of this level, but as I see that highly likely to happen in the near future, I have given this summative task a most serious effort and expect to implement this communicative-based approach into my lesson plans very soon once I begin teaching English as a Foreign Language. I thank you for your time spent reading and grading my assignment, and this entire process has been a pleasure.
