Leeson Plan 1

LESSON PLAN 1

Size of Class: 21

Age Group: 17-18
Level of Proficiency: Intermediate
Subject: gerund and infinitive
Duration: 40 minutes
Materials: smart board, worksheets, white board, three different colors of 4” x 6” cards (red,                    blue, yellow), writing paper
Objective: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to recognize the difference between                    gerund and infinitive by writing stories using at least five gerunds/infinitives.

                        1^st Hour of the Lesson

       Pre-Reading Stage (10 minutes):

   - Teacher makes students remember the subject by showing the charts.

·   - Before giving the story, teacher writes the words she thinks the students may not know on the board (to milk, dung, local shop).

·    - Teacher tells the students to find the given words’ meanings and to write an example using each word.

·    - When they are ready, teacher tells them to read loud their sentences.
 

   

  While-Reading Stage (30 minutes): 

- Teacher tells students that she will give them copies and they will complete the story by using gerund or infinitive forms of verbs

- Teacher gets them to compare answers in pairs, and then gives feedback to the activity as a whole class

- Teacher encourages students to justify their opinion as to why the gerund or infinitive should be used. For example, we can say “continue to get” or “continue getting” with no difference in meaning, and both are equally correct. However, when we look at tried, we need to look more closely at the context.
Did they increase their profits by buying chickens? If so, we could use the gerund. But the rest of the story makes it clear that the scheme didn’t work so it has to be the infinitive.
Similarly, does he try buying a gun or does he try to buy a gun? Both are correct, grammatically, so the answer depends on the context.
He tries buying would indicate that he encountered no problems in the purchase of the gun, but again the context makes clear that he wasn’t able to complete the transaction because he had no identification, so we must use the infinitive.
Teacher could discuss with the students other reasons why someone might try to buy a gun but fail to succeed (underage, need to wait a month to purchase, criminal record etc), and then reasons why someone would try buying a gun to solve the problem (burglars, graffiti problems, marital problems! etc).

- At the end of the hour, teacher discusses the choices with the students and asks them what happens next. For example “Does Jane ask for a divorce because of the smell?, Does it scare the chicken?, Do they buy more chickens?, Can you think of a better ending to the story?” etc.

2^nd Hour of the Lesson

        Post-Reading Stage (30 minutes):

·  - Teacher tells students that they are going to play a game called “Which one do I use?”.

·  - Teacher divides students into groups, of three students. And she gives each group one of the sets of cards.

·  - Teacher tells students that the red-card holders write down verbs followed by gerunds. The blue-card holders write down verbs followed by infinitives. The yellow-card holders write down verbs followed by a (pro) noun and infinitive. Each group writes a sentence for each verb on its cards, and then quizzes each other orally, using the cards.

·  - Teacher switches the colored cards from group to group. She tells that each group will read the cards and correct each other’s sentences.

·  - After each group has practiced with all the cards, teacher divides the class into pairs, gives each pair six cards (two red, two blue, two yellow) and has the pair write a dialog, using all six cards.

·  - Teacher puts two pairs together and has one pair read its dialog to the other pair.

·  - Put the students into new groups of approximately four. Have them write a story (on the writing paper) using at least five gerunds/infinitives. Every time they use a gerund or infinitive, they write both forms down and let the reader choose.

           Example: Once upon a time, there was a student who admitted to steal/stealing a book. He stole it because he couldn’t afford to buy/buying it. The . . . Last, the groups exchange papers so that each group reads another group’s story and circles the correct form each time there is a choice.

        * Charts for remembering the subject

STORY (activity and answer key)

A)    Complete the text using the correct form of the verb in brackets.

Farmer Jones and His Wife

Farmer Jones met Jane when he was just a young man. He couldn’t help (1 fall) in love with her immediately and asked her to marry him. She said yes although she knew it would mean (2 get) up early to milk the cows for the rest of her life. “Love means never (3 have) to get up early to milk the cows”, said Farmer Jones, and explained that he would continue (4 get) up early to milk the cows so Jane could sleep late every day.

Everything went well until they tried (5 increase) their profits by buying some chickens. The first night, a fox ate one of the chickens. Farmer Jones decided (6 build) a fence to protect the chickens. But the ground was too hard so he couldn’t. He tried (7 use) an axe to break the ground but it was much too hard. So he went to the local shop and tried (8 buy) a gun. But he didn’t have any identification so he couldn’t buy one. He tried (9 borrow) one from his neighbors but they were all worried about the fox too.

“I regret not (10 buy) one when I had those rabbit problems”, he told Jane.

So Jane went to the shop and bought a gun. That night she tried (11 stop) the fox. At first she tried (12 scare) the fox by shooting into the air but it didn’t work. So she tried (13 hit) the fox but she missed. She called her husband and he ran after the fox to try (14 catch) it but he wasn’t fast enough. They tried (15 shout) at the fox and they tried (16 throw) things at it and they tried (17 leave) other food for the fox but nothing worked.

Soon they had only 1 chicken left. They tried (18 ask) their neighbors for help and one of their neighbors told them to try (19 put) tiger dung on the ground. So they went to the local zoo to try (20 buy) some tiger dung.

They put the dung on the ground and they never saw the fox again.

Your answers:

  1)      ……………………….                      11) ……………………….

  2)      ……………………….                      12) ……………………….

  3)      ……………………….                      13) ……………………….

  4)      ……………………….                      14) ……………………….

  5)      ……………………….                      15) ……………………….

  6)      ……………………….                      16) ……………………….

  7)      ……………………….                      17) ……………………….

  8)      ……………………….                      18) ……………………….

  9)      ……………………….                      19) ……………………….

  10)  ……………………….                      20) ……………………….

Key:

11) falling- always gerund with “can’t help”

22) getting- the result would be this

33) having- again result

44) either gerund or infinitive

55) to increase- at this stage we don’t know if it will succeed or not

66) to build- at this stage we think he will be able to build a fence

77) to use (because he can’t use it) or using (he succeeds in attempting but fails in the action)

88) to buy- he tries buying would indicate that he encountered no problems in the purchase of the gun, but the context makes clear that he wasn’t able to complete the transaction because he had no identification, so we must use the infinitive.

99) to borrow - he tries borrowing would indicate that he encountered no problems with his neighbours, but the context makes clear that he wasn’t able to complete the transaction successfully, so we must use the infinitive.

  10)  buying (or not having bought) but not infinitive as he could have bought one if he'd wanted to(back then)

  11)  to stop (tries but fails)

  12)  to scare (tries but fails again)

  13)  to hit (tries but fails again)

  14)  to catch (tries but fails again)

  15)  shouting (easy to do but ineffective)

  16)  throwing (easy to do but ineffective)

  17)  leaving (easy to do but ineffective)

  18)  asking (easy to do and this time effective)

  19)  putting (easy to do and this time effective)

  20)  to buy (easy to do - at this stage we don't know if it will work)