🔁 Grammar A2-26: Verb + -ing or infinitive

The twenty-sixth material of the Fleydo A2 grammar series, and the one that turns a guessing game into two short lists. English constantly puts two verbs side by side, and the second one has to change shape — but the shape is not chosen by meaning, it is chosen by the verb standing in front of it. List A (enjoy, finish, practise, mind, can’t stand) demands an -ing form. List B (want, would like, need, decide, hope, promise) demands to and a plain verb. List C (like, love, hate, prefer, start, begin) accepts both, so the learner cannot lose. A four-step procedure teaches them to find the first verb before anything else, because that is the step learners actually fail, and two worked examples run whole sentences through it — Marnie finished fixing the lane ropes, Coach Winnie hopes to start the concert. A full section builds the -ing form itself: just add it, drop the silent -e, double one vowel plus one consonant, turn -ie into -y, with six reveal cards to commit to before checking. The compare-and-verdict pair is the one children really confuse: I like swimming, a fact about me all year, against I would like to swim, a wish for this one afternoon — same speaker, two different verbs and two different lists. Practice runs to four sets of eight, seven, eight and eight items, every one explaining its own answer, plus ten verbs to sort into lists, six real errors to repair and three traps. A short tap-and-explain text about a Saturday at the pool shows all three lists working in natural writing. Teacher notes give a 45-minute sequence, the one-word board move, and the Cambridge A2 Key relevance.