GRAMMAR NONSENSE & CURIOSITIES: can

It may seem a bit strange to include can under the umbrella of grammar nonsense. I’m sure few of you have considered the rules for its usage as wrong or find the way it’s presented particularly weird – and n the whole, I’d agree with you! I include it in our ongoing series of ELT shame and missed opportunities more as an example of how change sometimes happens while we remain unable to fully accept it. It all reminds me a bit of people who accept that a variety of sexualities exist in the world, but don’t want to see any public displays of affection connected to most of them!

When I was growing up, it was not uncommon for a certain type of older person – usually a teacher – to answer a question such as “Can I go to the toilet?” as follows:

“I don’t know. You tell me. Can you?”

Occasionally, on seeing the look of blank incomprehension on my face, they might then add:

“I’m sure you can, but you may not go now!”

On other occasions, we’d have this exchange:

Me: Can I go to the toilet?

Teacher: It’s ‘May I go?’ – not ‘Can I go?’

Me: Fine. So may I go to the toilet?

Teacher: No. You’ll have to wait till the break.

Now, here’s one strange thing about the sticklers for grammar and so-called ‘correct’ usage: they might get a bit more support if they weren’t always such total arses about things! Still, we all know that when it comes down to it, the wielding of grammar rules is very often much more about trying to exert power and superiority and about putting people down than it is about actually helping students to speak more or speak better. Those days are over, though! The people will be put down no longer! History has taken its course, and the people have exerted their right to use can for requests and permission.

Now some fifty-odd years on, young people simply don’t understand the battles we have had and wouldn’t bat an eyelid at ‘Can I sit here?’ or ‘Can you help me?‘ being actively taught in an EFL coursebook. This should be a cause for celebration. Language changes and we can change with it. Maybe one day we will also accept that the verb love is regularly used in the continuous form and that the concept of stative verbs isn’t really worth teaching.

However, before that day comes, we still have to fight more for the right of can to exist as a request – and for the broader acceptance of ambiguity. That’s because when you look at the syllabus and material that makes up many Beginner and Elementary books, the first presentation of can still often attempts to separate out can for ‘ability’. I say ‘attempts’, because in fact coming up with examples of can that unambiguously have only one of the possible meanings is quite difficult. Take Cutting Edge Starter (2013 edition). It uses the context of amazing people to present can / can’t so we meet a man who can play over 300 games of chess at the same time, twin toddlers who can swim 25 metres (but can’t walk yet) and a woman who paints with her feet because she has no hands.

I’m sure many of you wouldn’t see anything strange here, but I think there are a couple of things that should stop and make us think. The first thing is that when you look at the text and then look at the follow-up exercise to present ‘can’, the text says Vadim Ivanov plays chess very well and he doesn’t win all of his games, but in the exercise, it says Vadim Ivanov can play chess very well and he can’t win every game. So what’s the difference between this present simple use and the use of can here? If there’s no real difference, then we might ask why beginner students need to be taught it, and if there is a difference, we need to ask if the exercise shows it.

We might also wonder if both of these examples of can are actually about ability? I mean, when you say ‘You can’t win them all’, is that really a statement of ability or is a statement of (im)possibility? The other question I would ask about this short presentation is how does it help in conversation – how would these conversations actually come about? When would students need to tell people things like this?

Cutting Edge then moves on to introduce questions about ability, and then later presents can / can’t for talking about permission / rules in the context of customs: In India you eat with your hands, but you can only use your right hand / In Japan, you can’t blow your nose in public. Again, I’m not sure how clear – or how true – these examples are, but let’s not dwell on that. It’s only after further ‘freer’ practice around these meanings that you get to the ‘practical’ English section on can in requests and permission!

Why the delay? Surely these are situations which demand the use of can and are far more likely to be needed by the low-level student both in and out of class. It seems to me it may be in part a result of the legacy of my ancient teacher: we still seem to think that can is primarily about ability and that this other use is somehow not quite right. However, I think it’s more closely aligned to two other areas of grammar nonsense we have talked about before.

The first issue is to do with organising your syllabus around grammar structures and more specifically around particular, separate meanings of these structures. As we see above, having clearly defined separations of meaning is actually quite difficult. Furthermore, when we try to generate a context where we have multiple examples with a variety of verbs, it tends to be a very contrived context, which produces some rather odd examples.

The reality is that meanings are often fuzzy and overlap with other meanings, which is how ‘new’ uses develop. The new uses are understood because they are not totally separate from other established uses. Let’s be clear: my old teacher knew exactly what I meant when I asked ‘Can I go to the toilet?’! In this way, it actually doesn’t really matter which ‘meaning’ we start with or if the examples we give are not clearly one particular meaning. What’s more important is that we start by thinking about the most useful conversations / exchanges that students want to have and we then give examples that fit naturally into these conversations, irrespective of the ‘clarity’ of that example for illustrating a grammar meaning and irrespective of the variety of alternative examples the context will generate. We might start with one or two Can I / Can you questions, but we can be sure that there will be many other opportunities to build on these examples in future lessons.

The second issue that follows on from this is the requirement to present short answers with auxiliaries. In this case, questions about ability are often shown as being answered by a simple Yes I / you / she / we / they can or a No I / you / he … can’t whereas can for requests and permission often veer away from such a rule. It could be Sure / Go ahead / No. Sorry / I’m afraid not, etc. In this way, ability is thought to be ‘easier’ and so that’s what books tend to go with first.

As I say, things could be worse and not all coursebooks follow this process asstrictly as Cutting Edge Starter does. For example, English File can take a bow here. In its Beginner level, students are taught the expressions ‘Can you repeat that?’ and ‘How can I help you?’ at the end of unit 1. They get ‘Can I have … an orange juice?’ at the end of unit 2. Then in unit 8, there’s a lesson on can which focuses primarily on ‘permission and possibility’ and the grammar notes actually give ‘ability’ as an additional meaning which is particularly focused on.

This is certainly a good thing, but interestingly the focus of the practice is mainly on rules rather than on simple requests like ‘Can I / you open the window?‘ Students match can / can’t with signs to talk about rules. And it seems there is no concentrated practice of the request meaning at any point – even at the subsequent Elementary level.  So even here, it seems that the efforts to separate meanings, avoid ambiguity and ensure short answer practice is taking priority. We need to really make clear that something can’t be done because they are babies, have no hands or, in this case, because there’s a law about it. We can say Yes, I can or No, I can’t in response to these things, rather than potentially getting into a negotiation about why I want / don’t want to open the window.

Yet the dialogue that presents different examples of can does include some examples of requests and ‘soft permission’ – including a very useful exchange where people arrange a time to meet (Can you come at 8.30? Sorry I can’t. I have a lesson at 8.00. Can you come at 10? Yes, I can.) There are further examples in the grammar section.

This is the thing with many coursebooks: they do often have useful examples and the potential for developing a variety of different useful dialogues, but they tend not to follow through because their real focus is to practise and lexicalise grammatical forms – not to teach useful conversations. As teachers using these books, we could make some different choices. For example, we could get students to practise making basic invitations and arrangements. The book doesn’t encourage this because, while in the case above I have a lesson at 8 uses the present simple (for future meaning, though!), the students in a freer practice may want to say why they can do things using other forms like I’m meeting a friend then or I have to do some work. My view would be that you let students say what they can: I meet a friend  / Work! or whatever. You might then give them the correct version or just focus on practising the Can you come / meet at ….? In the same way, if there is the example of ‘Can I open the window?‘ then you could elicit other useful questions with typical answers and practice those.