Teaching Modal Verb “Can” to Eight Graders

By Irfan Nugroho
This time, my office syllabus gets me to deliver a lesson about the Modal Verb “Can,” as the handbook I use suggests a topic, “Can you sing?” For some teacher, this subject is considered very easy, and therefore they find it hard to develop it into a conversation in   a class.

So am I. I found it hard to make a conversation to be told to my eight grader students. All of sudden, I was thinking about the criteria of a good leader. It is said that a good leader must have some outstanding characteristics, and I started to figure out some other characteristics of: a good students; a good wife; and a good husband.

Then, why I decided to use the characteristics of a good wife and a good husband. Well, some of my students are now making intimate relationship with the other students. Unfortunately, the relationship is majority imbalance. It means that in some cases, the girl is smart, but the boy is not. The boy is religiously pious, but the girl is on the contrary.

Well, here is my complete procedure of teaching Modal Verb “Can.”

A.    Presentation Stage
I started the lesson by having discussing with my students about the characteristics of a good student. Then, we have some characters of a good student such as; diligent, smart, obey the rules, attend the class on time, and participate in the class regularly.

After that, I turned to female students and asked, “What are characters of a good husband, according to you?” Then they started to mention some adjective and verb such as; pious, handsome, smart, give money to the family, and take care of the family.

The end of the discussion is by asking the male students, “What are characters of a good wife?” They did the same. They mentioned some adjectives and verbs such as; pious keep the secret of her husband, take care of the children, polite, and beautiful.

After that, I started to display a conversation chart to be practiced in the practice stage below:

B.    Practice Stage
B.1. Knowing One’s Skills
The conversation chart requires students to make a conversation with their partner. The chart consists of two questions and two answers. Here are the charts:





As the students have been provided with the charts, then I got them to find five talents as well as skill their partners have. Through that way, they were required to use those charts in simulated conversation.

As they have found five talents or skills of their partners, I wanted to report them to the class. I gave three points for every single student reporting their data.

B.2. I want to marry you!
The second activity of the practice stage is called, “I want to marry you?” At this stage, I got two ‘brave’ students to perform a simulated interview. The two must be male and female because one of them will offer a proposal of marriage to his/her conversation partner.

By this, I tried to educate them to find the best soulmate by asking questions like:
“Can you give money to our family?”
“Can you take care of me and the family?”
“Can you be pious?”
and so on.

In the other words, I want them to really care and aware in choosing a boyfriend/girlfriend. I want them to ask such questions when they are offered with a proposal of making intimate relationship.

The score for a couple of student performing the interview is five points.

1 comment:

  1. The second activity of the practice stage is called, “I want to marry you?” At this stage, I got two ‘brave’ students to perform a simulated interview. The two must be male and female because one of them will offer a proposal of marriage to his/her conversation partner.

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