Introducing Grammar: Are teachers doing it the wrong way?

Introducing Grammar:  Are teachers doing it the wrong way?

I once taught at a language school specializing in English for Academic Purposes.  It prepared students for college by letting them pass all of our 12 levels in lieu of taking the TOEFL test.  This was an alternate route that many students preferred, as it was faster in most cases.  Students could improve their communicative ability while simultaneously preparing for college, without the monotony and rote memorization that often accompanies TOEFL preparation.

So basically, this place was trying to prepare students from the beginning proficiency (Level 1) to college-ready proficiency (Level 12) in just a year.  Seem crazy?  Maybe it was.

Introducing gerunds and infinitives: How did the textbook want to do it?

An absurd list of weird verbs most intermediate
students have never seen before

Here's where the grammar part comes in.  I taught an intermediate class several times, in which gerunds and infinitives were introduced.  Our (proprietary) textbook's way of doing so was to give examples of these two concepts in context (a conversation...yay!), then to have the teacher explain them and drill them through games and activities.  Sounds fantastic, right?  Here's the problem:  an enormous list of 50 or so strange verbs that were used with either gerund or infinitive was presented.  About 60% of this list was new to students, including verbs like advise and hesitate, and it was the teacher's job to get students to know:

1. the meanings and pragmatic usage of each verb, and
2. whether the verb was followed by a gerund or infinitive.

The thing was, these verbs were presented in a cold, sterile chart (see the picture above), and no context was provided.  Not to mention most of the verbs were quite advances for the intermediate level, and students were not yet in any position to be using some of these verbs.  The verbs didn't belong to any particular theme (jobs, environment, business, etc.).  Were teachers thus assumed to be responsible for making themes and contexts and interesting lessons involving these verbs so as to solidify them in students' minds?  Or could a giant stack of flashcards for each student, followed by a test (and encouraging rote memorization) work instead?  Neither is a good option.

The problem with the presentation

A poor student trying to memorize these lists,
as well as the definitions of all the new verbs

First of all, let's define at the problem.  Was the problem, "How can I get students to know the meaning and use for all of these verbs, never mind whether they go with gerunds or infinitives!"  No, in defense of teachers, that wasn't the problem at all.  The problem was how the concept of gerunds and infinitives were presented.  The concept itself is pretty simple, right?  We have these two kinds of verbs, and some go into one group, while other go into another group.  Just associate the right verb with the right group, and bingo!  This concept is in fact easy for students to understand, and is no different from teaching irregular versus regular verbs, prepositions, or any other grammar concept that involves placing items into groups.  The problem was that the book presented these verbs as giant lists to memorize, along with the meaning and use of each verb.  There's in fact no better way to  frighten to students.  Why should intermediate students, who have never encountered most of these verbs to begin with, now start memorizing whether they're followed by gerunds or infinitives?

Just one more variable in your vocab notebook

I argue that gerunds and infinitive (and other grammar concepts) should be presented first as a concept.  Students should understand that some verbs take gerunds and others infinitives.  They don't need to know any more verbs than they already do.  Use verbs students already know to highlight the gerund-infinitive distinction.  Do a few practice exercises with other verbs they know, perhaps including a few they don't know, and voila!  The lesson on this bogus grammatical concept is finished.  Time to move on.

"But wait!" teachers might say.  What about all the other verbs the students don't know?  How can they possibly be ready to move on when there are so many more verbs that need to be sorted into these gerund/infinitive categories?  The fact is, there are hundreds more.  But should you introduce these all in your world-famous gerund-infinitive unit?  Of course not.  The truth is, after the concept is introduced, students now have it in their heads that when they encounter a new verb, there's one more variable they must remember about it: whether it goes with a gerund, infinitive, both, or none at all.  Students already do this when they encounter a new word.  Remember the old saying?  "You need to know many things about a word, not just its definition, etc."  Students who make good vocabulary notebooks (and teachers who introduce new vocabulary well) include with every new word the part of speech, collocations, pronunciation, stress, transitivity and irregularity (for verbs), and count/noncount status (for nouns).  The gerund/infinitive variable is just one more to enter into their vocabulary notebooks, and one more variable that all teachers who are teaching "gerund/infinitive-aware" students should account for.

Essentially, the gerund-infinitive dichotomy should be taught as a concept, not as a list of words.  Then, as new verbs are encountered naturally in other lessons, students be taught whether they go with gerunds or infinitives, and encouraged to note this.

This concept is nothing new.  When we teach simple past, do we make students memorize giant lists of regular versus irregular verbs?  Well, maybe.  But the point is, students will never know which verbs are regular or irregular for all verbs.  They learn them as they come up throughout the course of their English studies, and throughout the course of their life, once they're done with English classes.

I recommend applying this method of "teach the concept first, let the students sort out the words later" to the following grammar points:

• gerunds / infinitives
• regular / irregular verbs
• count / noncount nouns
• transitive / intransitive verbs
• stative / nonstative verbs

Do you agree with my theory?  If so, do you know of any other grammatical dichotomies this can be applied to, other than those I've listed above?  If so, please post!

SUMMARY:

Textbooks often present gerund and infinitive units by teaching the concept, then forcing students to memorize lists of verbs that go with each of these constructions.  I argue that this method is ineffective and the gerund infinitive concept should be taught briefly, then students encouraged to remember it throughout their studies, noting whether new verbs go with gerunds, infinitives, both, or none whenever they encounter a new word.  This gerund/infinitive variable is simply one more piece of information students must memorize when they encounter a new word, much like pronunciation, stress, or common collocations.