Tazewell, Washington TESOL Online & Teaching English Jobs

Unit 18 Modals, phrasal verbs and passive voice The modals are, can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, must, have to, have got to, need to, needn’t and ought to. These words are used before other verbs to add meaning to the main verb. Modals can be used to express obligations, possibility or probability, permission or prohibition, ability, and advice. Teachers may use these examples as teaching ideas such as roleplaying, as modal verbs lend themselves to expressing functions of English role-plays are a rich source of teaching ideas. For instance, a teacher-student role-play would be quite productive for modals that can express advice and obligation. Another idea would be establishing rules and regulations for a hotel could provide a good opportunity for usage of modals of obligation, prohibition and permission. And signs can be used to guess the meaning of traffic or boards around the road. There are types of voices used in English which are active and passive. In a passive sentence, the object of an active verb becomes the subject of the passive verb. Both sentences basically have the same meaning, but the focus is different. In the active voice, the focus is on the agent. In the passive voice, the focus is also on the subject. But in the passive voice, the agent is much less important, or doesn’t appear. A relative clause of words containing a subject and a verb. There are three categories of clauses, independent clause, dependent clause, relative clause. An independent clause is a complete sentence. It contains the main subject and verb of a sentence. A dependent clause is not a complete sentence. It must be connected to an independent clause. A relative clause is dependent clause that modifies a noun. It describes, identifies, or gives further information about a noun and it can alsoo be referred to as an adjective clause. A relative clause is introduced by a relative pronoun which are who, which, that, whose, whom. There are two types of relative clauses defining and non-defining. The information given in a defining relative clause is essential to the meaning of the sentence. A defining clause makes clear which person or thing we are talking about. Examples of pronouns in defining relative clauses in a sentence, ‘this is the mechanic who fixes my car’, in this case the relative pronoun who refers to the mechanic and is the subject of the verb fixes. Another example, ‘things that band in the night scare me’, the relative pronoun that refers to things and is the subject of the verb bang. ‘I lost the pen that you gave me’, that refers to the pen and is the object of the verb gave. Examples of pronouns in non-defining relative clauses, in a sentence, ‘David, who smokes 10 cigarettes a day, still plays great football’, in this case the relative pronoun who refers to David and is the subject of smokes. Another sentence, ‘this tie, which is made of silk, has had it’, which refers to this tie and is the subject of it. ‘Gina, whom I adore, is marries’, whom refers to Gina and is the object of adore. Phrasal verbs or multi-word verbs, consist of a verb plus one or two particles. They operate as one time. There are three basic types of phrasal verbs, type 1 is intransitive, type 2 is transitive separable, type 3 is transitive inseparable. Teachers should keep track of the phrasal verbs that have been taught and try to use them naturally during controlled practice/conversations. If they are dropped in every now and then, they should become more familiar to the students. students will then hear them in various contexts and hopefully start using them naturally for themselves.