Talk to your students about things they can do and practice using can in the target structure because this will be the easiest word to start off with (see our CAN worksheets). Some of the words you want to focus on in this section are can, could, may, and might.
Modal verbs are often used to talk about abilities and possibilities or lack of them. This may seem like a long and confusing introduction but it is best after the pronunciation practice to simply write the modals and their rules off to the side of the board for reference.Ībility/Inability and Possibility/Impossibility Additionally they always require another verb because they cannot act as the main verb in a sentence and they only have present tense forms so unlike the word swim, there is no past tense form for modals. For example “ He should ~.” is correct, while “ He work.” is incorrect. Unlike most verbs, no -s is needed to form the third person singular. In your introduction you can cover some rules that apply to all modal verbs. Obviously there are no images that can help students understand the meanings of these words so you can do pronunciation practice simply by pointing to the words on the board. This may include can, could, may, might, must, will, would, shall, should, and ought to but, depending on the level of your class, you can narrow it down to those you feel are most important.
Start by introducing all the modal verbs you wish to talk about.
