To be or not to be? That is the question. >> What question? >> Well, I've been thinking about a job change. To be a baker or not to be a baker. >> Well, I know you love baking but do you really want to give up making Coursera videos? >> I would love to do both. >> Well, you can do both. You just need a bakery where you can make video lessons while you're waiting for your goodies to finish in the oven. Isn't that a good idea? >> What? No, that's silly. Forget it, forget it, let's start the commentary. Welcome to our commentary on gerunds, infinitives, making requests, and asking for permission, >> Politely. Our dialogue was filled with gerunds and infinitives. These forms are used in daily conversation all the time in various ways. So, in the first video on gerunds and infinitives, we gave just a basic introduction of both forms. And then gave lots of examples in the context of an announcement so students can see just how frequently gerunds and infinitives could be used in just a short monologue. >> Yeah, this is a method called input flooding. Input flooding is a strategy where you are basically flooding students with a lot of examples of the grammar point. >> So, is input flooding usually done at the beginning of the lesson? >> Not necessarily, it can come after the lesson. And many teachers already do this but maybe they didn't think to do input flooding before the lesson. >> Yeah I found that whether we flood before or after doesn't have a significant difference in helping the students learn the grammar point more effectively. >> Okay, well let's talk about the second video on gerunds and infinitives. When you created the video, what did you think was the most important? >> As I said, gerunds and infinitives were defined in part one, so in part two, I wanted to focus on some common ways they're used and highlight ways they're commonly misused. I introduced six uses, pulling examples from the first video and adding a few more examples along the way. >> I think some teachers might feel that, the best way for students is successfully learn both is through rote memorization. You provided a chart in your video, right? One column was verbs with gerunds, another column was verbs with infinitives and the last column was verbs with both. As teachers, it might seem easy to just tell students to go home and memorize that chart and come back to class the next day to take a quiz but this doesn't really help students use them in their speech. >> Definitely. It's really important to give students as many opportunities to practice them in meaningful contexts. >> Gerunds and infinitives can be used in different ways, subjects, objects, objects of prepositions. But they are never used as the main verb of a sentence. >> Right, so when you teach them using example sentences, you should always highlight with the main verb of the sentences and how it is different from the gerund or infinitive in the sentence. >> So as a teaching tip whether you write the sentences on the board or you present them on a PowerPoint, use shapes, labels and different colored fonts to make sure it's visually clear to students. >> One last point I want to raise is the register. Do you remember how I included a point about using infinitives in the subject position sounding very formal? >> Yeah, when you said to leave now is foolish. >> Yes, it sounds like you're stating some kind of proverb or reading Shakespeare. How would you feel if I said, to make me a cheesecake by tomorrow is imperative? >> Well, first, it's weird. It sounds better to say, it is imperative to make me a cheesecake by tomorrow. I like that you taught an alternative way to make sentences that start with an infinitive sound more natural. Second, I know what you're doing and no, you won't get a cheesecake by tomorrow.
