From the room, last lesson
Six sentences collected during Lesson 5. Every one was produced by somebody who could have corrected it if you had stopped them and asked.
That is the whole problem, in one line.
Six sentences. One error each. Twenty seconds each, out loud.
1. I have been considering to change department since January.
2. I cannot afford making that mistake twice.
3. She suggested me to wait until the review.
4. I keep to postpone the conversation.
5. They asked that I stayed another month.
6. It would mean to move twice in one year.
The finding
Why the lists do not transfer
Ask any of the six speakers above whether consider takes -ing and they will say yes. Ask them to explain the rule and they will explain it better than most textbooks. Then let them argue about something they care about for four minutes, and the rule is not there.
This is not a knowledge problem, and treating it as one is why the same list gets taught in year two, year four and year six. The rule is known. What is missing is that the rule has to be used at a specific moment: after the first verb has been said, while the second verb is being chosen. At that moment the speaker is busy — holding the argument, watching the listener, choosing content. And the fact they need is a fact about a word that has already gone past.
Fluent speakers are not faster at that lookup. They do not do it. Consider changing is stored as one item, retrieved as one item, in the same way as as far as I know or the other day. There is no moment at which anything is decided, so there is no moment at which anything can go wrong.
Which means the work is not more rules and not more lists. It is moving a small number of pairs from the part of memory that answers questions to the part that produces speech. Six pairs is a realistic target for a fortnight. Thirty is not, and the attempt is what makes people conclude they are bad at grammar.
One honest limit. This does nothing for the eight verbs in Lesson 4, because those genuinely take both forms and the choice is a choice about meaning. There you do have to think — but only about what you mean, which is a thing you already know.
Three questions.
1. What is missing when a learner who knows the rule still makes the error?
2. Why is thirty pairs the wrong target for a fortnight?
3. Does this approach help with remember, stop and try?
Three repairs that actually move a pair
What to do with a pair you keep getting wrong
| Repair | What you do | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Say the pair | Out loud, five times, as two words with no gap: consider changing, consider changing… | Storage is built by the mouth, not the eye. A pair you have never said is a pair you will not retrieve. |
| 2 · One true sentence | Put the pair in a sentence that is true about your life this week, and say that. | A true sentence is retrieved with the situation attached, so it comes back when the situation does. |
| 3 · Spaced return | Say the same true sentence again tomorrow, then in three days, then next week. | The interval is what moves it. Four returns across a fortnight beat forty repetitions in one evening. |
What does not work, and why it feels like it should. Writing the three columns out again produces a page that looks like progress and rehearses the wrong skill: recognising which column a verb belongs in. You are already good at that. The gap is production under load, and only production under load closes it.
Eight pairs, eight sentence frames. Match each pair to the frame it fits — then finish the sentence about yourself, out loud.
Three questions on how to work these.
1. Forty repetitions tonight, or four across a fortnight?
2. Why must the practice sentence be true?
3. Six pairs, or all thirty?
The pairs that stall, under a little pressure
One to three words per gap. Do not stop to work them out — if a gap takes more than five seconds, mark it and move on. The marked ones are your six.
I have been avoiding her back all week. I keep myself I will do it tomorrow, and I cannot afford it much longer. My colleague suggested her an email instead, which I refuse because it would be cowardice with a subject line. In the end I asked to sit with me while I rang, and I managed through it in four minutes. She has since reminded the same thing again next month.
Eight sentences. Seven contain an error; one is correct. Find the correct one too.
1. I am considering to apply for the other post.
2. He offered helping with the move.
3. Would you mind waiting outside for a moment? — correct as written
4. They persuaded me staying until the end of the quarter.
5. I have finished to write the report.
6. She reminded to send the figures.
7. We cannot risk to lose another month.
8. I hope hearing from them this week.
The sixty-second audit
Task card · Speaking + analysis · Pairs · 10 minutes
Speak for sixty seconds on one of: a decision you postponed, a habit you are trying to change, or something you keep meaning to do. Your partner writes down every verb pair you produce.
Sixty seconds of talk, then four minutes of analysis, then swap.
- Speaker: sixty seconds, no notes, no stopping. Say it badly rather than stopping.
- Listener: write every verb-plus-verb pair, exactly as said. Do not correct anything yet.
- Together, mark each pair: W if it arrived whole, A if you assembled it mid-sentence, X if it came out wrong.
- Everything marked A or X goes on your list of six. Write the true sentence for each before you leave.
How to tell W from A. An assembled pair has a small hesitation in the middle — I keep… putting it off — or a repair: I keep to put, putting it off. A stored pair has neither. Your partner heard it; you did not.
Six, not thirty
Two questions about your own six.
1. How many of your six were verbs you could have explained the rule for?
2. What is the schedule for the next fortnight?
Where the pairs live now
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. Why does knowing the rule not stop the error?
2. What are you carrying into the written piece?
Next. Two hundred and fifty words on a decision you are making — written slowly enough that the pairs can be chosen, and checked.