Revista simpozionului Eficienta si calitate in educatie 2018 Revista simpozionului | Page 24

necessary/important” etc. Most of our examples will refer to high school level –
intermediate. For example, at an intermediate level, we will not insist on many
details concerning the use of the verb “can” but we must make sure that our
students know how it is used in the sentence and that it expresses possibility (e.g.
“They can be late.”), permission, as a synonym for “may,” (e.g. “You can go to
sleep now.”) and ability (e.g. “He can play the violin very well.”).
We may choose to deal with these grammar items in a larger context of activities
not necessarily insisting on the formal aspects, or on the contrary, we can choose
to present them openly to our students. In Teaching and Learning Grammar,
Harmer draws a distinction between covert and overt grammar teaching. 4 Covert
grammar teaching follows Krashen’s principles on language acquisition hiding
grammatical facts from the students. The students are asked to do a listening
activity or read a text where new grammar is introduced but the focus is on the text
and not on the grammar issue. The teacher does not refer to any of the grammar
issues that might appear during the activity. Overt grammar teaching on the other
hand deals with grammar problems openly, the teacher offers grammatical rules
and explanations to the students. For example, the situation in which the teacher
explains the negative form of modal verbs – the fact that the modal verbs do not
use auxiliaries in the negative (e.g. “You must not neglect your sister.”) is
extremely overt.
All languages have a system of grammaticalization by which certain semantic
features are signalled. As far as modal meanings are concerned, there are several
possibilities of expression: mood (which is not particularly specific to English),
modal verbs (the main device of expressing modality in English) and different other
elements carrying modal meanings (nouns, adjectives, adverbs, intonation etc.).
There is a great degree of arbitrariness in the choice of grammatical form in the
sense that it is not always directly determined by meaning. Furthermore, features
associated with modality sometimes may not be marked grammatically. Among
such features are “hoping” and “fearing” which are marked lexically rather than
grammatically:
e.g. “I hope Mary will arrive on time.”
e.g. “I am afraid they have missed the bus.”
The difficulty of announcing a clear semantic definition of this category makes
impossible a strict and complete inventory of the grammatical means of conveying
modal values. Nevertheless, it is possible to classify them in terms of mood, modal
verbs and other means of expressing modality.
The most important verbs which express modal meaning in English are the modal
verbs. The modal auxiliaries, as they are often called, are: can, could, may, might,
must, will, would, shall, should and ought to. They differentiate themselves from
the “primary auxiliaries” through their special grammatical features: they have no
infinitive and the third person singular has no “-s.” Most modal verbs also have a
“dictionary meaning” besides the grammatical function.
It is not advisable for the teacher to insist on too many tiresome theoretical details
in an introductory lesson on modality. The schematic presentation of the main
characteristics of modal verbs and a table (containing the verbs, the meanings and
4
Jeremy Harmer, Teaching and Learning Grammar. (New York: Longman, 1991), 3-4.
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