💡 Grammar A2-24: should / shouldn’t

The twenty-fourth material of the Fleydo A2 grammar series, and the third of three about how hard a sentence pushes. It treats should as a decision about power rather than about grammar: if the listener can say no and no rule is broken, the sentence takes should; if a law, a sign, a timetable or a person in charge decides instead, it takes must or have to from A2-22 and A2-23. A four-question procedure runs that test, chooses between should and shouldn’t, decides whether advice is being given or asked for, and ends by insisting on the bare verb. Three worked examples walk whole situations through it, one positive, one negative and one turning into a question. A compare-and-verdict pair sets a jacket you may leave at home against a helmet you may not, and a three-step scale separates shouldn’t from mustn’t from don’t have to, because those three negatives mean three different things and learners routinely swap them. A full section is given to Should I…? and to the answer shapes that come back, from a bare Yes, you should to the far more common I don’t think you should. Practice is spread over four sets of eight, seven, eight and eight items, each one explaining its own answer, plus ten situations to sort by who decides, six reveal cards of real teenage problems, six errors to repair and three traps. A tap-and-explain group chat about a sore knee shows advice and club rules working side by side in one conversation. Teacher notes give a 45-minute sequence, a board line from you decide to somebody else decides, what to do with a stuck learner, the two errors to name out loud, and the Cambridge A2 Key relevance.