There are tons of uses for the passive voice. But rather than reading 30 pages on the matter or listen to a lecturer profess its values, students need practice and application; how to identify, practice, and produce the passive voice. Show
But before we move on, let’s review some basic rules and terms: What are active and passive sentences?Here’s a quick refresher: Active sentence Passive sentence I eat dinner. [Subject / Object] Dinner is eaten by me. [Object / Subject] An active verb is one that follows a subject pronoun, i.e. a doing verb. A passive verb is one that follows an abstract noun or a noun to which an action is being done. “Me” is the agent, the doer of the action. The passive tense “formula”Remember:
Dinner was eaten / has been eaten / had been eaten etc.
Object + be + past participle ( + agent ) Activity 1: Error-spottingWrite these sentences on the whiteboard and ask students to explain why they’re wrong. ✓/X Sentence Explanation ✓ The lesson is taught by the teacher. Adequate [object / agent] agreement X He is taught the lesson. Passive constructions [be + past participle] cannot follow subject pronouns [he] X They is eaten dinner. No [subject / verb] agreement; same error as above X Dinner is eaten by they. [Object / agent] agreement is almost correct, but the agent must be an object pronoun [they] X They ate dinner. This is an active sentence. ✓ Dinner is eaten by them. Adequate passive sentence, if a bit odd. Better clarify who is [them]. Activity 2: BINGO – for language accuracyWarm up:
Past simple Present simple Past continuous Present continuous Past perfect Present perfect
Eat Has/have been eaten Is eaten Was eaten Is being eaten X Had been eaten Was being eaten X X
Play:
Past simple Present simple Future simple Past continuous Present continuous Future continuous Past perfect Present perfect Future perfect Past perfect continuous Present perfect continuous Future perfect continuous
Teacher: “Past perfect – drive.” Student: “Had been driven.”
BINGO assessed students’ language accuracy, now it’s time for a more independent group task, a way to assess students’ fluency: Activity 3: Production Task – for language fluency
Now, it’s the students’ turn. Here are the “specs” for this project:
Passive eg: The rabbit was rescued by the man. BONUS**: Conditional eg:** If the wind hadn’t changed so rapidly, the fire wouldn’t have spread so quickly. Remember, your students will need to experience several different approaches to the passive tense before they are able to reproduce it easily and naturally. The great thing about these activities—particularly BINGO—is that they can be returned to (with added complexity) once students’ confidence increases and they are able to produce more interesting, complex passive voice sentences. Good luck! Which of these activities would help students understand the importance of punctuation in written discourse quizlet?Which of these activities would help students understand the importance of punctuation in written discourse? Students read, both silently and aloud, a series of short texts missing punctuation marks.
Which of the following activities would best support students work to improve their reading prosody?Listening to the teacher read will help students learn to develop prosody in their own reading.
Which of the following tasks should the students do first when conducting research?The first step in conducting action research is to identify and define the focus of your investigation. You'll want to develop some questions about the area of your focus. Finally, you'll need to identify a plan to effectively study and answer the questions you've developed.
Which of the following describes what happens in the transitional stage of writing?Transitional stage: Letters start to become words (4 to 7 years) When kids start to realize that words are made up of sounds, and that letters represent these sounds, they stop using random letters in their writing. Instead, they start trying to match the sounds they hear in a word to letters they know.
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