"Modal Verbs- Obligation, Prohibition, Deduction"

Thursday 20^th

Hi! What’s up?

Hey! What’s the matter lately? There’s been two weeks without having the six of you in class! Last week Óscar and David were absent and this week Pilar and Óscar were absent too!

It seems that Óscar was ill. So was David last week. David, too.

Well done guys! You did homework. And it was very good.

We continued talking about rules.

·           Why do you think it’s important to have rules and regulations?

·           Have you ever broken a rule?

·           What did you do?

·           Why did you do it?

We express obligation and prohibition like this:

Obligation	Must  (“I must”, when you impose the obligation yourself. “You must”, when somebody tells you what to do). I must wash my hair. “You must wash your hair”, said my mother.	Have to  (usually for rules  or laws) I have to wash my hair. (My mother told me so)
Prohibition	Mustn’t /Can’t / isn’t- aren’t allowed to
No necessity	Don’t / doesn’t have to
Advice / recommendation	Should / shouldn’t Ought to / ought not to

We played a game called “The holiday game” to revise “going to” and types of holidays.

It went like this:

We’re going on a safari and we’re taking a sword because … if a wild animal attacks, we can defend ourselves.

We’re going on a beach holiday and we’re taking thread and needle because … if our swimming costume is torn we can mend it.

We studied modal verbs to express possibility (likelihood).

	Affirmative	Negative
Certainty	Must He speaks English very well. He must be from England.	Can’t Sue can’t be ill because I saw her this morning in the street.
Possibility	May / Might / could He may / might / could be in a traffic jam because he is never late.	May not / might not He may /might not know that the meeting was today.

Can’t is the negative of must when we express possibility.

Could isn’t used in the negative to express possibility.

May and might have a similar meaning. Although “might” is “less possible”

We played a game called “out of context” so as to practise how to express possibility and certainty with modal verbs.

Unfortunately, player 2 cheated by glancing (having a look) at their opponents’ cards and this made player 6 upset, annoyed, angry!

All of you have been awarded the same points in the game.

For homework and the “Holiday game”.

Player 2 didn’t come to class, so he didn’t do homework, but he was very good at spelling and vocabulary.

GAME 6                                              

Player 1	6
Player 2	6
Player 3	6
Player 4	----
Player 5	----
Player 6	6

Modal Verbs