From Elka:
“Learner challenges here are very much form related (the mastery of the past participle forms and the complex passive voice forms in the perfect and the progressive tenses). Because of th is formal complexity and the message sent by many textbooks that the passive and active are interchangeable, we end up with usage problems as well, i.e. massive avoidance of PV forms or … overuse by some learners whose L1 uses the Passive Voice a lot.
“Given that[,] the passive voice has a very specific function, namely:
= it allows us to do focal adjustment
and
= it minimizes the role of the “agent” when it is unknown, irrelevant, or redundant”
Here’s one passive voice error from Mexico:
“Suddenly when I stepped, my foot buried in the ground.” [Alejandro, age 16, native Spanish speaker in Mexico, written error]
This is the only passive error I collected. One way I might have approached it would have been to change “bury” it to a verb that would work in the simple past in this context, such as “sunk.” Or I could have explained that the foot is having the action DONE to it, not doing the action, so it requires passive form.
Approaches to Teaching Passive Voice
Grammar in Context
In this three-book series, the passive voice isn’t introduced until nearly the end of the second. They introduce it by comparing it to the active voice in the past tense. It moves on to forms and uses, with a table of usage in simple present, simple past, future, present perfect and modal. Then they explore negatives and questions with the passive voice. The next section shows a one-page table with examples that help students understand when to use passive versus active. Cloze exercises reinforce when to use/not to use, how to change from passive to active and vice versa, etc. The chapter ends with two summary tables: one for form and one for use. Meaning is not explicitly identified, but is implicit in the first two tables.
In Book Three, the passive is revisited in the second lesson, with a different topic (Hollywood) but essentially the same kinds of material initially: formal tables (adding the present continuous and past continuous) and usage tables. They move on to explore the passive voice without an agent; with an agent; verbs with two objects, transitive and intransitive verbs; passive voice with ‘get’; participles used as adjectives; participles used as adjectives to show feelings; past participles with ‘get.’ Quite grammar-based.
*Grammar Connection
I have only Books 1, 2 and 5 of this series so I don’t know when they introduce passive for the first time. Not in the first two books. In Book 5 they have a review chapter for the passive voice. This is a content-based book, and the theme is cultural anthropology. I like their approach. They begin by using the form in context, with a listening/reading passage about the Gullah, with passive words bolded. This is followed by a chart of sample sentences (use) accompanied by meanings. This book uses a greater variety of activities than Grammar in Context, which relies heavily on close and matching. Students have journals, there are visual prompts for writing, and some excellent exercises to make reason for usage clear. They also include small group and pair exercises based on exploring each other’s culture. Finally they have verbs that frequently occur in the passive, a find-the-error exercise, and some more complex passive exercises. Lacking in this area is the explicit exploration of form, but I expect that they will have done that in previous books.
Grammar Links
The first mention of the passive voice is in Level 3 (the last in a 4-book series, with the first being “Basic”), more than halfway through. They introduce the passive by presenting sentences using it, in which Ss have to match a multiple choice subject to the sentence. They leap right into to having the students use it, before an explanation of its meaning. Instead, they show its form in affirmative and negative statements, yes/no and wh-questions. They start the students practicing but meaning is still not clear. It’s not until the second section, 11 pages of exercises and new information later, that they get to “function” or meaning. They analyze agent, action, and receiver, the ‘by’ form, and end with a reading about arthroscopic surgery as an example of passives in academic writing. I dislike this book.
The New Grammar in Action
In this three-book series, passives are introduced late in the third. The chapter begins with a drawing of a map of the western US, with such questions as “Find California. Which state is located north of California?” I don’t mind this approach, since it’s active and simple, and gives Ss a taste of the form before swamping them with grammar. It proceeds through a number of exercises that model the present passive, and have students produce simple sentences. Then they have a sequence exercise about how orange juice is produced and have Ss write a short description of the process. Nice idea. The next chapter is Passive – Contrast in which they compare passive and active and very briefly (unintimidatingly) explain uses of the passive. Then they teach students how to change all verb tenses to the passive, as in Grammar in Context, but in simpler format.
My Thoughts About When to Teach Passive
Simultaneously with each tense or later, when core tenses are established?
In general, I think it’s better to wait. It’s confusing enough to learn the form, function and meaning of new verb tenses without adding a related form, meaning and use. Further, the passive construction is statistically not as common as are other verb tenses.
An exception might be if you were teaching an ESP class for a field, such as one of the sciences, in which the passive voice occurs frequently. I still think I’d make sure students were solid in past simple and progressive, present simple and progressive, and future before I introduced their passive versions.
Lesson Ideas
Topics of interest — describing changes or process: Explore how a specific cultural group has become Westernized or otherwise evolved over time based on outside influence. Or talk about your own cultural group and how it was changed by Colonialism or economy or other forces. Research the origins of a type of music (blues was developed in slavery times… it was used to…). Research an archaeological finding. Look at the production process for a product of interest, from MacDonald’s hamburgers to wine to shoes.
From Grammar in Context (5th Edition) Level 2, Lesson 13
- Uses theme of “the law” to explore passives: the Constitution, jury duty, voting and “unusual lawsuits.” [“In 2002, a group of teenagers sued several fast-food chains [could get them to change it to passive] for serving food that made them fat…”] Discussion: are drivers permitted to use cellphones? and other legal issues in the news. This series uses “form, meaning and use” organizing principle.
- My idea: get them to change stuff in that story to passive. Get them to make up their own strange lawsuit.
From The ELT Grammar Book
- A map: What happens here? Use manipulatives. Grain is grown in the Midwest. Soldiers are trained…
- Cut apart a map and get Ss to say what is done in each state or region.
- List of places in a city: gym, bank, etc: What is done here. Like BASTA: 5 places. Give Ss a point for each passive that no one else has thought of .
- Tell brief story-lettes and get Ss to make up headline. Big Ugly man killed.
- Flow chart of events with far-reaching consequences. People can live to 150. UFO lands on power station —> electricity cut —> businesses closed —> transportation is halted —> birth rate is doubled…
In ELT Grammar Book there was a little exercise for teachers that I think students could do. I’ll produce a variation here:
A: Have those novelty items from China arrived yet?
B: Yes. In fact, they were delivered from the port just this morning. What do you want us to do with them?
A: Well, they really should be taken over to the Hansen Street Warehouse, don’t you think?
B: Okay. I’ll get right on it after I finish up these reports.
A: Those reports were supposed to be finished and sent to our main office a couple days ago, right?
B: Well… yes, but I was called out of town and didn’t get back until two days ago, remember?
A: Oh, yeah. I forgot. Well, let’s get them out as soon as we can.
Hint: There are subjects in sentences that actively do something, but other subjects that don’t. When is the subject doing the action of the verb, and when is something being done to it. If the subject isn’t the doer, the verb is likely to be passive.