Mastering Gerunds and Infinitives: A Comparative Study

Mastering Gerunds and Infinitives: A Comparative Study

Learning Objective

At the end of the lesson, you will be able to understand the usage of gerunds and infinitives, and compare their differences.

What do you already know about gerunds and infinitives?

Introduction to Gerunds and Infinitives

Gerunds are verbs ending in -ing used as nouns, while infinitives are the base form of a verb preceded by 'to'.

Usage of Gerunds

Gerunds are used as subjects, objects, or after prepositions. For example: Swimming is my favorite activity.

Usage of Infinitives

Infinitives are used after certain verbs, as subjects, or to show purpose. For example: I want to learn Spanish.

Comparison of Gerunds and Infinitives

Gerunds express continuous actions, while infinitives express potential or future actions. For example: I enjoy swimming vs. I want to swim.

Practice: Identifying Gerunds and Infinitives

Provide sentences and ask students to identify whether the underlined words are gerunds or infinitives.

Application in Writing

Ask students to write sentences using both gerunds and infinitives to express different meanings.

Conclusion and Recap

Summarize the key points about gerunds and infinitives, and encourage students to ask any remaining questions.

Write down 3 things you learned in this lesson.

Have students enter three things they learned in this lesson. With this they can indicate their own learning efficiency of this lesson.

Write down 2 things you want to know more about.

Here, students enter two things they would like to know more about. This not only increases involvement, but also gives them more ownership.

Ask 1 question about something you haven't quite understood yet.

The students indicate here (in question form) with which part of the material they still have difficulty. For the teacher, this not only provides insight into the extent to which the students understand/master the material, but also a good starting point for the next lesson.