TITC

Passive voice

Exercises

A Complete the gaps in these sentences with the correct passive form
of a verb from the box.

repair not tell take find hold steal build

was taken
Example: George _______________ to hospital after the accident yesterday.

1. The body of a young man _______________ in the river yesterday.

2. Thirty-five cars _______________ from the city centre since January.

3. Where _______________ the next Olympics _______________ ?

4. _______________ the bridge _______________ a long time ago?

5. The hole in my water pipe _______________ next Friday.

6. Mary _______________ us about the accident.

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B Look at these pairs of active and passive sentences. In each pair, which do you
think is the better sentence? Explain why.

Example: (a) We only use 11% of the Earth’s land for farming.
(b) Only 11% of the Earth’s land is used for farming.

(b) because it’s obvious who uses it

_______________________________________________________________________

1. (a) The Japanese like fish and eat 3 million tonnes of it each year.
(b) Fish is liked by the Japanese and 3 million tonnes of it is eaten by them every year.
_______________________________________________________________________

2. (a) At first, Europeans didn’t smoke tobacco but used it as a flower.

(b) At first, tobacco wasn’t smoked by Europeans but used as a flower.
_______________________________________________________________________

3. (a) My sweater was made in England.

(b) A company called Next made my sweater in England.
_______________________________________________________________________

4. (a) My car will be repaired next week.

(b) A mechanic will repair my car next week.
_______________________________________________________________________

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Passive voice
Before this lesson students should be familiar with all basic tenses in the active form.
This lesson will cover how the passive voice is formed and the main uses of it.

These are: + when it is not known, or important to know, who performs an action.
+ when you want to focus on when or where something was done rather than who did it.
+ to make statements in an impersonal style (often for notices or announcements).
+ to describe processes.

Note that, in the time available for the lesson, it is unlikely that you will be able to cover all these usages, so
you should select the ones appropriate to your class and restrict yourself to these in the study stage.

You should edit the following teacher’s notes as appropriate and may be able to use the additional material
in a later lesson, or in a review lesson.

ENGAGE
Ask the students questions about news stories in their country. Pick on different topics, such as sport,
politics, business and local news. After an open class discussion about the first topic, set the students up in
pairs or threes to talk about the next topic for a minute or so and report back to the class as time allows.

Take some of the sentences you are given and write them on the board, making sure you choose both an
active and passive example in the related tenses. Have a newspaper available with some suitable
headlines as back up.

STUDY
Elicit the form of the example active sentence to get subject + verb + object.
Example: ‘The Prime Minister visited India last week’

Elicit that the subject is the ‘doer’ of the verb.

Now look at the form of the passive voice sentence.
Example: ‘Manchester United were beaten by Arsenal’

Elicit that, in this sentence, the subject is not the ‘doer’ of the verb
Ask who the ‘doer’ of the verb is and elicit a sentence which means the same,
Example: ‘Arsenal beat Manchester United’

Elicit that in the second sentence Arsenal are the subject of the sentence and say that this is an ‘active
voice’ sentence. In the first sentence Manchester United are the subject but the action was done to them,
and this is the passive voice. The tense in both is past simple.

Elicit the form of the past simple passive voice as

Subject + verb ‘to be’ (in same tense as active verb)+ past participle of verb.

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Also elicit that the doer is introduced using ‘by’ and can be omitted if they are unknown or unimportant. This
is the first usage.

Do one more example on the board in a different tense, eliciting correct answer from students.
E.g ‘People speak English in Australia’ becomes ‘ English is spoken in Australia’
Note that ‘by people’ is removed.

Study Activity 1:

A Complete the gaps in these sentences with the correct passive form
of a verb from the box.

After feedback, do examples of other usages, eliciting usage points from students.

Examples: ‘The construction company will complete the new road soon’
‘The new road will be completed soon’
(Notice / announcement).

‘To make concrete, people mix water, sand, cement and stones’
‘To make concrete, water, sand and cement is mixed’
(describe a process).

Highlight that the decision to use active or passive is based on what information is required or important.
For example ‘ India was visited last week by the Prime Minister of England’ would not be appropriate
because the focus needs to be on what the person was doing , not what was being done to the country,
therefore the active voice is used.

Study activity 2. (Decide on appropriate voice).

B Look at these pairs of active and passive sentences. In each pair, which do
you think is the better sentence? Explain why.

ACTIVATE
Take a picture from a magazine, newspaper, comic or picture dictionary that has a lot of activity. Be sure
that the students will be able to make some passive sentences about the picture.
Set up groups of 3 students and get them to write a short paragraph that contains both active and passive
sentences. Give them a target number and time limit.
Elicit some examples using a different picture from the one you will give them, such as:
Last Saturday I was at a very nice restaurant where the food was being served by a beautiful waitress. I
was having dinner with my new girlfriend. As the wine was being poured at the next table………..

Get students to read out their paragraphs and make note of errors to correct at the end, using students to
do so themselves.

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