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Unit 18 covered the three parts of grammar in its title along with relative clauses. Modal verbs seem to be the easiest for students to pick up, at least grammatically and especially if they are already familiar with other auxiliary verbs. Mastering their nuance however may remain a challenge. This was really brought home by the task on page four. While the difference in courtesy between can and could might come naturally to a native speaker, I can see how it might be a trial for a foreign learner to pick up on the subtlety. The Japanese are always quite eager to learn about speech patterns as such since their language heavily incorporates formality and politeness, but still I see students struggling with choice of words. Even I had to think twice about number eight on page four.
I also found the chart on pages two and three interesting. It points out something that most people do not really think about: what tenses the different uses of modal verbs can be used in. Even though native speakers might not make many mistakes in usage this way, I know what it must be like for a non-native speaker to try to not only choose a word with proper meaning for a specific situation, but also make sure his/her sentence grammatically makes sense. Again, the system to address different groups of people with varying degrees of formality is quite complex in Japanese.
The passive form can also really throw my students a curveball. While in Japanese the passive voice functions the same and is not too difficult for a foreigner to pick up, when learning the other way around I find my students have a terrible time distinguishing between the subject and object, even when speaking in the active voice. To see that most ESL learners use the word by too often or simply have trouble with the verb to be (which my students also have) really puts things into perspective. The grammar between the two languages is so different that getting their heads in the right mind frame seems to be an impossible challenge. I’m sure English just sounds overly verbose and redundant compared to their native language. I the activity ideas that were given at the end of the section, particularly the second one. Matching strips together relies more on deducing grammar patterns and would not help my students speak at all. But orally quizzing their classmates on various topics seems fun and a practical way to get them talking.
I learned some helpful new terms in the relative clauses section, like defining relative clause and non-defining relative clause. Even if you fully understand sentences of such grammar types things like terms, usage, and implications really do not come intuitively. Relative clauses do not give my students a terrible amount of trouble, but they do make mistakes choosing the correct relative pronoun from time to time.
I probably got the most out of the phrasal verb section though. Until now I had been calling them two-word verbs and trying to help my students with my limited knowledge of them. I will probably not bring up all the terms in class, but I now have a much better understanding of the different types and how they function. It will be much easier to explain now with this outline of intransitive, transitive separable and transitive inseparable phrasal verbs. I also like the role play idea. I did not realize how many phrasal verbs could be used in just one simple every-day situation.
