Look carefully at the world around you and you can often guess what will come next. Dark clouds gather over the hills, so rain is probably on its way. A dog barks angrily at a passing man, so the man could be in danger. You are never completely certain about such things. That is exactly why English has special words for guessing: may and might. When you see the four situations below, try saying aloud what may happen next in each one.

Notice how every guess uses may or might. Nobody knows for certain that the rain will fall or that the dog will bite. A guess is honest about not being sure, and may and might carry that honesty inside them. There is also a short song in this unit about staying calm while everything outside keeps changing. The poet says that the world may be full of chaos, but his own heart is a quiet paradise where his dreams live safely.

The song is by George Santayana. Even its first line uses the word may, because nobody can be sure what the world outside is doing. Here is a real practice you can do today: go outside and look at the sky. What does it look like? Is it likely to rain, or will there be sunshine? Say your guess in a full sentence and share it with your class.

A man had a donkey that had worked hard for him for many years. Now the donkey was old and weak. The man shouted at him and said he would not feed a useless old donkey any more. The donkey thought about his life and made a plan. He liked music, so he decided to walk to Ilam, join a band, and become a musician.

On the road the donkey met an old, tired dog. The dog said his master was going to kill him because he was too old to be useful. The donkey invited him to come along to Ilam. Further on the way they met a cat. She was too old to catch mice, and her mistress would not feed her. The donkey and the dog told her they were going to be musicians in Ilam, so the cat joined them too.

Soon they saw a cock. He crowed sadly that his mistress was going to eat him the very next day. The donkey, the dog and the cat told him not to worry and asked him to come with them to Ilam. So now there were four friends on the road.

The four friends walked on until it grew dark, and they found themselves in a big forest. They saw a small light, walked towards it, and came to a small house. When they looked inside, they saw a gang of thieves sitting round a table, eating a big meal, laughing and talking. The hungry animals wanted a meal like that, so they made a plan. Silently they climbed on each other's backs. Then all four began to make their loudest noises at once. The donkey brayed, the dog barked, the cat miaowed and the cock crowed, and they all jumped through the window. The thieves were terrified. They ran away into the forest, and the four friends sat down at the table and ate the wonderful meal.

After eating, the friends put out the light and went to sleep. Each one chose a place. The cock sat on the beam over the door. The cat lay near the fire. The dog lay behind the door. The donkey lay on the straw in the front yard.

Out in the forest, the thieves saw the light go out. Everything was quiet, and they began to feel ashamed of running away. One thief offered to go back and look at the house. He crept inside and saw the cat's bright eyes shining in the dark. He thought they were burning coals of a fire, so he poked his candle at them to light it. The cat jumped up and scratched him with her claws. The thief ran for the door and stepped on the dog in the dark, and the dog bit his leg. As he stumbled across the yard, the donkey kicked him hard. And the cock flew down at his head, screeching cock-a-doodle-dooo!

The poor thief limped back to his friends in the forest. His story was much bigger than the truth. He said there was a witch in the house who scratched his face, a man with a knife behind the door who stabbed his leg, a big monster in the yard who hit him with a stick, and a judge who shouted, Bring the thief to me! After that the thieves went far away and never came back. And the four friends? They never went to Ilam at all. They lived happily together in that same house in the forest forever.

When you look at a situation and make a guess about it, you can build your sentence in three moves. Look at what is happening. Think about what could come next. Then say it with may or might, often starting with the words I think. Study these two model sentences first.

Now practise with these six situations. For each picture, say your own sentence with may or might. One good sentence is given under each picture, but yours can be different, as long as it is a sensible guess about what could happen next.

Weather reports are full of guessing language, because nobody can be completely sure what tomorrow's sky will do. A reporter says the weather will improve, or that there is a possibility of rainfall in the hills. Scientists do not only guess, though. They also measure, and one of their simplest instruments is shown below.

When you listen to a weather report, listen for four things: the name of the person speaking, the names of places, the days being talked about, and the weather words such as improve, rainfall, sunny and fine. Here is a real task for this evening. Listen to the weather report on the radio or television. What might the weather in your province be like tomorrow? Note it down, and check the next day whether the forecast came true.

Study these three sentences carefully. I am not sure, but I may come to meet you tomorrow. It's cloudy. It might rain today. He is in school uniform. So, he must be a student. All three talk about things the speaker cannot see directly, but they are not equally sure. The first two are guesses. The third is almost a certainty, because the uniform is strong evidence.

This unit also practises will. We use will with a verb to say what we expect or promise to happen in the future. They will come back home soon. He will win the race. Don't worry. I will help you. Notice that will is stronger than may or might. Saying I will come is a promise, while I may come is only a possibility.

A paragraph can contain all the right words and still be wrong, if its capital letters and punctuation are missing. When you rewrite a faulty paragraph, check it against this short list.

• Begin every sentence with a capital letter.
• Give a capital letter to every name of a person, place or school, such as Saroj, Nepal Secondary School and Pokhara.
• End every sentence with a full stop.
• Put commas between names in a list, such as Sonu, Muna, Sujal and Bibhan.
• Put quotation marks around the exact words somebody speaks, with a comma before them: He replied, "Sure, I will be in time."

See how the rules change a broken sentence. The line my friend rita lives in butwal she has a dog is really two sentences and three missing capitals. Corrected, it becomes: My friend Rita lives in Butwal. She has a dog. Read your own writing aloud. Every place your voice stops is a place that probably needs a full stop.

The unit also asks for a paragraph of your own about the growing population of the world. Think about the problems it will create in the near future and use these clues: cost of living, diseases, deforestation, pollution and other problems. Write one clear sentence for each clue, then join them into a single paragraph. This is a good place to use will, because you are describing what you expect the future to bring.

The second reading is a famous short poem by Henry W. Longfellow. In it, a man shoots an arrow into the air and sings a song into the air, and both seem to vanish. Read the poem first, then its meaning below.

In the first stanza the poet shoots an arrow. It flies so swiftly that his eyes cannot follow it, and he does not know where it lands. In the second stanza he breathes a song into the air, and the song disappears the same way, because no eye is keen and strong enough to follow a song. The last stanza gives the surprise. Long afterwards he finds the arrow stuck in an oak tree, still unbroken. And he finds the song again too, complete from beginning to end, kept safely in the heart of a friend.

The four friends of the story wanted to be musicians, and your project brings music into the classroom too. Collect pictures of musical instruments from newspapers, magazines or printouts. Paste them onto a sheet of cardboard paper and write the name of each instrument neatly under its picture. Good instruments to look for are the madal, the flute, the sarangi, the guitar, the harmonium and the cymbals. When your chart is ready, present it to the class, pointing to each instrument and saying its name aloud.

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