Gerunds and infinitives have undoubtedly made English a more effective and organized language. A gerund is the '-ing' form of verb used not as verb but as a noun and an infinitive is the 'to' form of verb, again used as a noun. You can easily compress and structure a loosely composed sentence with the help of gerunds and infinitives.
Yet, teaching Gerunds and Infinitives English is one of the toughest challenges that ESL/EFL teachers face. Actually, most languages do not have gerunds (even if they have gerunds and infinitives, their use is very occasional); no wonder that the non-native English learners find gerunds' and infinitives' English exceedingly troublesome to master.
Teaching Gerunds and Infinitives English presents a genuine challenge in another respect. Though different in forms, gerunds and infinitives do not exhibit clear, pronounced demarcations in their usage. Their usages overlap and both are used as subjects, subject complements or as direct objects of verbs.
Some usages are bound by grammatical rules. Thus, it is usually the verb, which decides the aptness of the use of gerund or infinitive as a direct object. This, of course, calls for the systematic memorization of the verbs to be followed by gerunds and infinitives separately. There are other similar rules and instructing students according to these rules pose no real problem.
These rule-based usages show only one aspect of teaching Infinitives and Gerunds English. Teaching Gerunds and Infinitives English becomes problematic when the usage does not fit into any of the pre-set, methodical approaches. To add to these problems, some grammatical applications apparently seem similar to the usages of gerunds and infinitives in English language.
ESL/EFL teachers help their students tackle these problems and overcome confusion by involving them in standard practice sessions. Thus, ESL instructors rely on Gerund and Infinitive based exercises for teaching Infinitives and Gerunds. Very often, they even resort to Gerund/Infinitive Quizzes. Many ESL/EFL teachers make use of flash cards, overhead projectors and even Internet based programs for teaching Gerunds and Infinitives English .
All the same, one-on-one interaction (either with the teacher or with a co-learner) works wonders with almost all students and hence instructors should plan different class activities .
Activity
To start with, go for the easiest activity. Ask your students to give at least five examples each of gerunds and infinitives. Write down all the ten words on board.
Next, ask them to make sentences with each word to introduce them to the application. When they are done, initiate open discussion in the class to review and rectify flaws.
When this hurdle is crossed and your students are familiar with the usage of the ten words, involve your students in sorting out the verbs according to their usage. Ask them to divide the words under three heads -
- Verbs used with gerunds only
- Verbs used with infinitives only
- Verbs used with both gerunds and infinitives.
Assist your students' progress by adding new verbs in each category.
Repeat the whole course of action as many times as you like. Your students will benefit from this practical method of teaching Gerunds and Infinitives English .
(Note: These are a series of activities for a class of no more than 10 students. If class-strength is more than 10, the teaching will lose its effectiveness).
Co-operative English teaching is a collective/group English teaching program (based on practical and theoretical teaching practices) wherein free exchange of ideas is highly appreciated.