The thesis some problems of using infinitive and gerund

The thesis some problems of using infinitive and gerund THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING SERVICE LE HOAN HIGH SCHOOL THE INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE THE THESIS SOME PROBLEMS OF USING INFINITIVE AND GERUND A[.]

THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING SERVICE

LE HOAN HIGH SCHOOL

THE INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE

THE THESIS SOME PROBLEMS OF USING INFINITIVE AND GERUND

Author: Le Thi Hoe Occupation: Teacher Field (Subject): Foreign language

THANH HOA YEAR 2017

CONTENT PART I INTRODUCTION

I.1 The reason for choosing the thesis 3

I.5 New idea of this thesis 5

PART II CONTENT

II.1 The theoritical matters 5 II.2 The realities of matter before applying this method

Some problems of using infinitive and gerund 5 2.1 The confusion between the infinitive and gerund 6 2.2 The confusion between the bare infinitive and full

2.3 Choosing the gerund or the infinitive after “to” 8 2.4 The confusion of using the pro(noun) between two verbs 8 II.3 Suggested ways of solving pupils’ errors 10

3 1 Present the use of infinitive and gerund 10

A Infinitive: full infinitive and bare infinitive 10

C Some verbs can be used both to-verb and verb-ing 13 3.2 Give some types of exercise 14 II.4 Result

15

PART III CONCLUSION AND REQUEST

1 Conclusion 17

2 Request 18

PART I- INTRODUCTION

I.1 The reason for choosing the thesis:

As you know, English language has become an international language by virtue of the political and economic progress made by English speaking countries in the past 200 years It is now mainly used in communicating in most

of aspects such as: airports, international business, international conferences, science, technology, medicine, international competitions, email, mass of media in the world

With the trend of integrating, Vietnam has been promoting their abilities

in all aspects Therefore, in education, Vietnam really pays attention to teaching and learning English all schools in Vietnamese education system English is also becomes a chore subject in national educational system From those, we see the importance of teaching and learning English in the development and integration

of our country

In Vietnam, nowadays, students begin to learn English at primary school

In high school, they continue the teaching program from primary school to secondary school They learn English with different skills to continue improving their skills and knowledge Furthermore, they also prepare the best knowledge for their most examination of graduating or use the knowledge for higher education

Being an English teacher, I know the importance of English with my students, so I try to find out the best methods in teaching English for them, In our school system, English is both different and characteristic subject It makes students curious and passionate For many learners, English as a foreign language, they have to face up with many problems That is because each language has its own characteristic features (especially on grammar) Moreover, their first language easily influences learners

For vietnamese pupils, because English is an inflectional language, whereas Vietnamese is an isolating and analytic one That causes problems for Vietnamese pupils to use the language, due to constructions which do not have the exact equivalents to the ones in Vietnamese That makes them to choose which to use

Example: He wants her go out for a walk

He enjoys to play football

These sentences seem correct, but in fact, they are wrong we can rewrite correct form of them:

He wants her to go out for a walk.

He enjoys playing football.

In English grammar, it is a big problem which forms of verbs We should choose to use in order to be appropriate to each circumstance The most complicated problem that pupils usually face up with is the confusion between the basic form of verb (to- verb) and the participle form (v-ing) Because, many

verbs, adjectives and some nouns can be followed by one or other of these forms

My above simple analyses has shown complexity in using the infinitive or gerund Of course there is still more complexity about this I myself have made a survey of ideas of the difficult parts in English grammar

As an English teacher, I find it necessary and interesting to gain a better understanding of the infinitive and the ing-participle in English grammar

For all the reasons above I have decided to concentrate on doing this subject

With the thesis I hope that I will cotribute my little experience to help my students like and improve the grammar in the next courses

I.2 Objectives:

When teaching English to students in the grade 10 a5 at Le Hoan high school I found out that grammar stage is important and it also effects students' results, so I decided to carry out this thesis

The above reasons show that the uses of the infinitive and gerund need more detailed study with this trend: It is aimed at: Firstly, I want to helpVietnamese learners understand the usages of the infinitive and gerund when they are used in communication and its equivalents in Vietnamese Secondly, I want to give some suggestions for teaching the infinitive and gerund

at high school to help learners leave out their errors in the process of learning English Besides, I want to create my own experiences which are useful and necessary for my teaching The experiences will be used in next courses and bring out the good results in my job Moreover, I also want to cotribute my own experiences in teaching English grammar at Le Hoan high school Last but not least, Based on the results of this action research, some changes and new methods could be applied in teaching

I.3 Participants:

The subjects chosen for the research include 45 students in the class 10A5 at Le Hoan High School with the survey questionnaires The research was carried out in the first term of the academic year 2016-2017 at Le Hoan High School

I.4 Methods of the study.

The study bases on teacher's main activities: teaching time in the class, analysis and presenting

The data is collected by sets of questionnaires Some were set before using the methods and others were set after using the ones

Other sources of data come from grammar tasks from the textbooks The analysis of data hopefully will bring about reliable findings useful for the teaching grammar to students at Le Hoan High School

I.5 New idea of this thesis:

Discovered the problems of using to verb and verb-ing of students in grade 10 a5 at Le Hoan high school

PART II - COTENTS OF STUDY II.1 The theoretical matters:

In every language, the verb (V) plays the most important role among the units: S, V, O, C and A in forming the construction of sentences The verb is considered as a part of speech denoting an action, a process, a state or expressing an idea or emotion, the being of person or thing in the universe

Vietnamese learners usually face to the interference and influence of mother tongue when learning English, especially they are often influenced Vietnamese grammar So, when translating a sentence from Vietnamese into English, they use their previous mother tongue experience as a means of organizing the second language data They do not master the nature of matter, but only translate word by word As a result, they make mistakes easily Moreover, mistakes are often caused by lack of intention, carelessness of learners even they knew the rules of grammar what they are doing

II.2 The realities of problems before applying this method

For students at Le Hoan High School, most of them are students living in the countryside When they were small, they were lack of knowledge of English language because in their family, few people know about this language This has

a great influence on the children Students are not aware of the importance of it Even if, most of students are short of the basic knowledge of English

After that, when entering high schools, students have to learn English with giving tests and marks, many of them are afraid And many students usually cope with Students have some problems in using the infinitive and gerund such as:

** Some problems of using the infinitive and gerund to Vietnamese

pupils.

Vietnamese is an isolating and analytic language, whereas English is an inflectional one Vietnamese verbs remain unchanged in any cases whereas English verbs forms are various

Ex: For Vietnamese:

+ Tôi muốn ra ngoài

(Similar to: I want to go out )

+ Anh ấy thích hát

(Similar to: He enjoys singing )

In Vietnamese, we only use one form of verb analogous to the English to verb both in the contexts in which English use the infinitive and in other contexts in which English would use a gerund It is difficult for Vietnamese

pupils to predict which form is likely to follow which verb That is why it is not surprising that learners sometimes make mistakes The following are some errors that they often commit

2.1.The confusion between the infinitive and the gerund

It is a big problem that Vietnamese pupils may meet because many reasons: one form is grammatically correct Both of these forms are grammatically correct

a Verbs taking only one form:

- There are many verbs that make pupils confuse because they are the same meaning, but not follow the same partner

Ex: Pupils usually use the verb: "advise" with a pronoun/noun and a to - infinitive after it

- When they take the verb "suggest" which is similar in meaning to

"advise" They also use "to - infinitive" construction, as in the following sentence:

+ He suggests us to get up early in the morning

This sentence is grammatically wrong

It must be:

+ He suggests us getting up early in the morning

Or He suggests that we should get up early in the morning

*Some verbs when they are used without a pronoun or noun, they must be followed by a gerund, whereas when they are used with a pronoun or noun, the infinitive must be used here with the same meaning.(ex: intend, advise, encourage, allow, forbid, permit, recommend )

Ex: + She advised waiting until tomorrow

+ She advised him to wait until tomorrow

* Some verbs such as: like, love, hate, prefer can be followed by either: infinitive or gerund In fact, they are often used with the gerund, whereas would like, would love, would prefer, would hate normally takes a to infinitive Many pupils do not recognize the difference between "like" and "would like" They use the gerund after "would like" in such a sentence:

Ex: + I would like eating sweets

This sentence is grammatically incorrect The correct sentence is:

+ I would like to eat sweets.

Some students make mistakes with these verbs: "would like" and" would mind" in the structure:

Would you like + gerund ? And would you mind + to infinitive ?

It must be:

Would you like + to infinitive ? And would you mind + gerund ?

b With verbs taking both of the two forms:

Any of English verbs can be followed by either gerund or infinitive With some verbs, the choice of which of these forms is not a problem However, the choice of the gerund or infinitive may be difference in meaning

Pupils, who are not aware of the difference between the two cases, may be easy to make mistakes

Ex: A student promised his friend that he would call his last night, but in fact,

he did not call her: He says:

+ I forgot ringing you last night

This sentence is grammatically correct However, in this situation he can not use "ringing", instead, he must use "to ring"

It must be:

+ I forgot to ring you last night

Because he did not call her last night, he must use the second sentence If he uses the first sentence, it means that: last night he called her

* Some adjectives and nouns can be followed a to infinitive:

Ex: She is afraid to swim

But when these adjectives and nouns are followed by prepositions, they must be followed by a gerund not to infinitive

Ex: she is afraid of swimming

Usually, the meaning in this case will be changed Many pupils are not aware of the difference so that they fail to use the correct form that suits to their intention

2.2 The confusion between the bare infinitive and to infinitive.

* Some verbs as: would like, would prefer take to infinitive While would rather, rather than take a bare infinitive

They may create a sentence:

+ I would prefer to stay at home rather than go out with them

Someone may produce a wrong sentence:

+ I would rather to stay at home than go out with them

The use of "to stay" here is grammatically incorrect

It must be:

+ I would rather stay at home than go out with them.

* Some verbs, in active sentences, they are followed by the bare infinitive while in passive ones, they are followed by to infinitive

Ex: To make:

Active sentence: The teacher makes me do all the homework again

Passive sentence: I am made do all the homework again

It is wrong It must be:

I am made to do all the home work again

* Pupils tend to use the bare infinitive after pronoun or nouns of verbs of which they require to infinitive Some verbs as: ask, want, promise, need, intend

Ex: Instead of creating such sentences:

+ I promise her to give her a gift.

+ She reminds me to do morning exercises

They may produce such wrong sentences

+ I promise her give her a gift

+ She reminds me do morning exercises

* One minor problem is that although the modal verbs like: can, may, must, will, shall are followed by a bare infinitive (not to infinitive) Many pupils use them as ordinary verbs This is to say: They use to infinitive verbs after these modal verbs

Ex: + I can not to sing well

This sentence is grammatically wrong

It must be:

+ I can not sing well

2.3 Choosing the gerund or the infinitive after "to"

"To" is either a preposition or a part of to infinitive It is a part of to

infinitive in: I afford to buy a new car.

When being used a preposition, It precedes as (pro)noun or a gerund

Some of expressions that "to" plays as a preposition: look forward to, face up to, resort to, be used to close to, be accustomed to Pupils tend to consider "to" as a part of the to infinitive so that they use the infinitive after the word "to" This is the mistake that the pupils often make sentences:

Ex: + I am looking forward to hear from you

This sentence is grammatically wrong, because "to" in this case is a preposition

so we must use the gerund after it

It must be:

+ I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Some pupils may create wrong sentence:

+ I prefer riding to walk

In this case, we must also use the gerund

It must be:

+ I prefer riding to walking.

2.4 The confusion of using the (pro)nouns between two verbs:

Some verbs when used with the to- infinitive can take the optional (pro)nouns They often cause problems However, there are verbs which require

a compulsory (pro)noun before an infinitive

The facts that pupils tend to use these verbs without a (pro)noun

Ex: +They invite to go out for lunch

This sentence is grammatically incorrect

It must be:

+They invite me to go out for lunch

There are some errors that pupils often commit when learning English, especially pupils in high schools It is better to find out some ways of overcoming this problem

Through teaching in class 10 A5, I gave them a fifteen minutes test and forty minutes at the end of October, school year 2016-2017 with result:

In a fifteen minutes test consists of 6 sentences about infinitive and gerund with total mark of 6 sentences is 3 marks

Test 15 minutes about infinitive and gerund

Number Full name Mark

1 Trinh Thi Ngoc Anh 1,5

2 Le Thi Ha 0,5

3 Mai Khanh Huyen 1,0

4 Trinh Huu Quan 0,5

6 Nguyen Thu Trang 1,5

Test 45 minutes about infinitive and gerund

In a forty minutes test consists of 10 sentences about infinitive and gerund with total mark of 12 sentences is 4 marks

Number Full name Mark

1 Trịnh Thi Ngọc Anh 2,5

3 Mai Khanh Huyen 2,0

4 Trinh Huu Quan 1,5

6 Nguyen Thu Trang 2,0

With low results above, I always give students tests about infinitive and gerund below multiple choice, correct mistakes, supply the correct form of verbs and then explain carefully for each choice in order that students can understand and use correctly

Besides that, I always look for the methods to teach students the basic ways to recognize, classify and remember

II.3 Suggested ways of solving pupils' errors

We make mistakes because we have not understood that problem clearly

or we misunderstand that problem So that mistake should not occur if we make out the problem correctly and clearly and we make the correct instructions become automatic and habitual