Learning Through Activities! Can / Could!

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What can you do?

As an English teacher, it is my duty to find the most creative ways of teaching the language. In modern teaching, rules are not that much important. It is more important to let your students visualize and use what they learn in the class effectively. Therefore, learning through activities is the best way of teaching something. Today, I would like to show how you can teach " can " and " could " modals to your students.

In order to make sure that your lesson about can and could is effective, it is always a great idea to start with a warm up. Since can is based on possibility and abilities, you may ask your students to learn what they can do, maybe adding some sport activities. In addition to that, the best thing would be to ask about what technology we had some years ago and the one we have in our daily life at the moment. This will easily trigger your students to get to know what is coming in the lesson.

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Changing World!

After having a short warm up about the things that I mentioned above, it is a great idea to provide them some reading texts or dialogues so that they can see how these modals are used in a text. When you explain the rules directly, students will probably not understand any single thing. Here is an example of a text about "can" and "could"

Changing Technology

Technology has changed a lot in recent years. Nowadays, we can use lots of applications to learn English. Everything is possible for learners. However, we still can't learn languages in a short time. We need more help from science. 15 years ago, we couldn't use smart phones, so it was hard to get information. We could only call our friends or send messages. People are so lucky in these days!

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Set the rules!

The text that I have written above can be improved by everyone who wants to use it. It is just an example of a lesson which can focus on the uses of can and could modals. When students are done with reading, you may ask them what they can do thanks to technology now and what people could do with the things they had 15 years ago. By doing this, your students will be able to use the modals effectively.

You may also ask them to set the rules like the ones that I am going to show in the following sentences.

*Can - Can't - Could- Couldn't
We use (+)............. /(-)................. when we want to say that something is possible in present time!
We use(+)............. /(-)................. when we want to say that something was possible past time!

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Practice!

As we do in all lessons, it is time to practise what students have learned in this lesson. There are some various ways of practising these modals. You may ask your students to say what they can and could do with the technological devices they have at the moment. If you want your students to be more active, you may also list some helpful words on the board for them.

In addition to this, you may also write a similar text that I have written in this post with a slight difference. In the text that you may prepare, you can ask your students to choose the correct modals. It is an amazing way to let them know the difference between " can " and " could " modals.

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Appealing!

When you give some lesson materials which can trigger your students to be creative, they will surely be more interested in doing homework. I think, we also need to be creative if we want to present them some meaningful tasks!

As a proud member of @Sndbox, I support @steemiteducation community since they work a lot to help people who put effort in creating valuable contents on Steemit platform. Everyone is welcome to have a look at @steemiteducation page and educate all people! Thanks for reading.

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