Unit 2: Practice Modal Verbs

Learning Objectives

In this section, we follow up on the "Learn" Unit of our lecture series on modal verbs in Chinese. That is, this is the "Practice" Unit where you will practice your skills using the seven modal adverbs (副动词), 能、会、要、想、得，可以，应该。 You will see seven-parts of a narrated PPT that contain exercises ranging from sentence-level to discourse level and from media examples, excerpts from autobiographies, TV sitcoms to common errors by language learners.  

Specifically, see the three videos below and the accompanying PowerPoint slides. The embedded video clips are not available in the PPT slides while they do show in the narrated videos. If you are a teacher making use of these materials, you should be able to find these films in your libraries or at Chinese streaming sites. 

The specific goals are: 

•Practice your communicative skills aided by the seven modal verbs. 

•Develop advanced proficiency by understanding authentic examples in a range of language modes (written, spoken, interactional, presentational. 

Part 1: Sentence-level contextualized practice 

Part 2: Practicing by fixing common learner errors 

Part 3: Practice with discourse-level exercises 

Part 4: Practice with translation based on authentic examples 

Part 5: Practice with reading extracts from autobiographies  

Instructional PPTs

Data Sources

Film clips are from the following films: 

• 人在囧途 “Lost in Journey” directed by 叶伟民 http://movie.douban.com/subject/4237879

• 不能说的秘密 “Secret” directed by 周杰伦 http://movie.douban.com/subject/2124724/

Autobiographies:

• http://book.douban.com/subject/11507862/  李娜 《独自上场》

• http://book.douban.com/subject/1033432/ 姚明 《我的梦想我的梦》