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Área: English Asignatura: English Curso: 8th

Fecha: 25 al 03-03 Periodo: I Nº Hor: 12hr Semana: 6

Tema: The passive voice

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Students will be able to use the passive voice.

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Exploración to use the passive voice

Contextualización

Using the active and passive voice

An active sentence like I drank two cups of coffee has the subject first (the person or thing

that does the verb), followed by the verb, and finally the object (the person or thing that the

action happens to).

So, in this example, the subject is I, the verb is drank and the object is two cups of coffee.

But, we don't always need to make sentences this way. We might want to put the object first,

or not say who did something, for lots of reasons (see the explanation further down the page).

In this case, we can use a passive, which puts the object first: for example, two cups of coffee

were drunk. We can add by me if we want, but it isn't necessary.

Conceptualización

The Passive in English

We make it by putting the verb 'to be' into whatever tense we need and then adding the past

participle.

(For regular verbs, we make the past participle by adding 'ed' to the infinitive -

play becomes played, click here to learn about irregular verbs)

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g ACTIVE PASSIVE

present simple I make a cake A cake is made (by me)

present continuous I am making a cake A cake is being made (by me)

past simple I made a cake A cake was made (by me)

past continuous I was making a cake A cake was being made (by me)

present perfect I have made a cake A cake has been made (by me)

pres. perf. continuous I have been making a cake A cake has been being made(by me)

past perfect I had made a cake A cake had been made (by me)

future simple I will make a cake A cake will be made (by me)

future perfect I will have made a cake A cake will have been made(by me)

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Producción

When should we use the Passive?

1. When we want to change the focus of the sentence:

o The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. (We are more interested

in the painting than the artist in this sentence)

2. When who or what causes the action is unknown or unimportant or obvious or

‘people in general’:

o He was arrested (obvious agent, the police).

o My bike has been stolen (unknown agent).

o The road is being repaired (unimportant agent).

o The form can be obtained from the post office (people in general).

3. In factual or scientific writing:

o The chemical is placed in a test tube and the data entered into thecomputer.

4. In formal writing instead of using someone/ people/ they (these can be used in

speaking or informal writing):

o The brochure will be finished next month.

5. In order to put the new information at the end of the sentence to improve style:

o Three books are used regularly in the class. The books were written by Dr. Bell.

(‘Dr. Bell wrote the books’ sound clumsy)

6. When the subject is very long:

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o I was surprised by how well the students did in the test. (More natural than:

‘how well the students did in the test surprised me')

Modelación

Use of Passive

Passive voice is used when the focus is on the action. It is not important or not known,

however, who or what is performing the action.

Example: My bike was stolen.

In the example above, the focus is on the fact that my bike was stolen. I do not know,

however, who did it.

Sometimes a statement in passive is more polite than active voice, as the following example

shows:

Example: A mistake was made.

In this case, I focus on the fact that a mistake was made, but I do not blame anyone (e.g. You

have made a mistake.).

Form of Passive

Subject + finite form of to be + Past Participle (3rd column of irregular verbs)

Example: A letter was written.

When rewriting active sentences in passive voice, note the following:

the object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence

the finite form of the verb is changed (to be + past participle)

the subject of the active sentence becomes the object of the passive sentence (or is dropped)

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Taller

1). Change these sentences from active to passive:

1. People speak Portuguese in Brazil._______________________________________________________________2. The Government is planning a new road near my house._______________________________________________________________3. My grandfather built this house in 1943._______________________________________________________________4. Picasso was painting Guernica at that time._______________________________________________________________

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5. The cleaner has cleaned the office._______________________________________________________________6. He had written three books before 1867._______________________________________________________________7. John will tell you later._______________________________________________________________8. By this time tomorrow we will have signed the deal._______________________________________________________________9. Somebody should do the work._______________________________________________________________10. The traffic might have delayed Jimmy._______________________________________________________________

Bibliografía

I. Understanding and using grammar (1999). Third edition. Betty Schrampfer Azar.

II. The big picture (2011). Santillana Education. S.L Richmond Publishing.

III. Top Notch (2011). Second Edition, Student book. Pearson Education, Inc.