Vocabulary:

Act, audience, perform, talent, talent show

gerund, infinitive
like, love, hate, can’t stand, begin, start, continue, prefer, remember, forget, try, stop, regret.

Preparation:
Prepare sentences for Activity 3, Same or Different. For each verb, prepare a sentence with the same meaning
and one with a different meaning. Sentences can be sentence strips or written or projected on a board. You can
add more sentence pairs:
Ben remembered to call his mom. Ben remembered calling his mom.
Nikki tried to juggle ten plates. Nikki tried juggling ten plates.
We began to watch the movie. We began watching the movie.
Do you prefer to walk? Do you prefer walking?
They love to dance. They love dancing.
I forgot to read that book. I forgot reading that book.
Moby stopped to eat lunch. Moby stopped eating lunch.
We continued to run. We continued running.

Lesson Procedure:

1. Talent Show. Ask students if they have ever been in a talent show. What acts did they perform? Tell the
students that the movie is about a Talent Show (L3U4L4). Ask what acts they expect to see in the show
and brainstorm a list of possible talent show acts on the board. What do they think Moby will perform?
Play the movie and pause right before the end, when Ben pushes Moby onto the stage. Have
partners Think-Pair-Share an idea about the ending. What do they think Moby will do? Students can
share their ideas with the class.

2. What’s Your Act? Ask students what acts they could perform if they had a talent show in their school.
Replay the movie at the time stamp 1.12 – 1.42. Then, with the help of the class, write down the prompts
that Ben asks Moby:

Think about something you’re good at.

Think about something you like doing.
What do you like to do best?

Instruct partners to write and role-play a dialogue about the act they would each perform. They should
take turns asking and answering using the question prompts, the list of talent show acts on the board,
and the list of verbs from this lesson (can’t stand, begin, continue, hate, like, love, prefer, start, try,
regret, remember, forget, try, stop).
 3. Same or Different? Have partners write SAME and DIFFERENT on two large cards or pieces of paper.
Show a pair of sentences together (see Preparation). Partners discuss and decide if the two sentences
have the same or different meaning, and then hold up one of their signs.

4. Act it Out. Divide the class into small groups to practice using verbs that take a gerund or infinitive with
different meanings. Give each group one of these verbs: remember, forget, regret, stop, try. Students
must perform two short skits or pantomimes to illustrate the two meanings of these verbs (the meaning
when used with an infinitive, and when used with a gerund). In pairs, the rest of the class guesses the
verb, and thinks of a sentence to explain the idea of each skit, using the verb in the gerund or infinitive.
Students can refer to the Know More feature for more information about the grammar.

Materials:

 BrainPOP ELL

 Index cards and tape

Vocabulary:
depend, produce, consume, energy, system, ecosystem, chain, web, food chain, food web, population, pond,
plant

Preparation:
For Activity 1, Prepositions + Gerunds, prepare cards to play a game with the class. Make a separate card for
each of the following words. You can make one class set, and lay the cards out in the front of the room for
students to take, or make a separate set of cards for each group.
thank you / use / known / for
stop / protect / prevent / keep / from
plan / spend time / spend money / depend / on
ask / complain / dream / forget / talk / think / worried / happy / about
good / bad / at
think / suspect / scared / tired / of
believe / interested / in
bored / angry / annoyed / with

For Activity 4, Movie Questions, write questions on the board that require prepositions that take gerunds, or
prepare handouts. 
Example questions:
What does Ben think this day is perfect for doing?
Why does Ben thank Moby?
Why does Ben say that Moby can forget about keeping the fish?
What do we need energy for?
What do animals get energy from?
Name one part of a pond food chain (a plant, insect, fish, bird, or animal), and where it gets its energy from. Use
this sentence frame: The ____________ get energy from eating ______________.
Describe all parts of a pond ecosystem food chain, using the sentence frame from above.
What does Moby care about protecting?
Lesson Procedure:

1. Prepositions and Gerunds. Prepositions are tricky for English Language Learners. To practice pairing
prepositions and gerunds, prepare a set of cards to play a game (see Preparation). Divide the class into
small groups or teams. Sticking the cards onto the board with tape, put up one of the preposition cards.
The teams take turns putting up a word that goes with the preposition. They must also come up with a
correct sentence using a gerund. You can designate if the sentences must be about the movie or not.
Note that some of the words are verbs and some are adjectives.

2. Go! To practice using expressions with go + gerunds, challenge small groups to list as many
expressions as they can think of with the verb go, such as go swimming, go camping, etc. To ensure
all students in a group participate, have them use the Roundtable strategy within their groups. The group
with the most correct expressions wins. Then ask the groups to create sentences with the expressions,
reminding them that they can use go in all the tenses they have learned.

3. What About You? As students watch the Grammar section of the movie, pause for them to think of
more sentences with each example, related to themselves. For example: 
I'm very good at _______________.
I'm scared of _________________.
Let's plan on ___________________. 
Don't even think about _________________. 
I enjoy not ________________.
4. Movie Questions. Write questions on the board about the movie, or prepare handouts (see
Preparation). Choose questions requiring the use of prepositions that take gerunds. Pause the movie at
the appropriate points for partners to discuss the answers in a Think-Pair-Share, and then share
answers with the class.

5. Relay Race. On each end of the chalkboard, make a list of verbs and adjectives that require a
preposition (see words below). The two lists include the same words, but arrange them in different
order. 

Words include: tired / forget / believe / think / plan / good / scared / bored / ask / interested / worried /
bad 

In the center of the board, write the following prepositions to serve as reminders during the game: for,
from, on, about, at, of, in, with 

Divide the class into two teams and have them line up on either end of the board, near each list. When
you say “GO,” a student from each team writes the correct preposition next to one of the words on the
list. Then the student quickly passes their chalk to the next student on their team. That student adds a
gerund to the end of the phrase started by the previous student. For example, if the first student wrote
the preposition of after tired, the next student might add the word studying so the phrase reads tired of
studying. The next student on each team then adds a preposition to another word and so on. Remind
students to refer to the list of prepositions on the board for help.