Page 1 of 1

activities for passive voice in simple present or s. future

Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2004 6:21 pm
by valcs982
Hi everyone

I'm taking my Teachers training and a I have to give a class for passive voice, the thing is that I have no idea of what kind of activity I can use for Passive voice in Simple present, I hope you can help me!! thanks!!

Val

:)

Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2004 6:45 pm
by fluffyhamster
You could describe the mechanical and/or impersonal stages/processes involved in the production of an item, from parts to assembled unit and even all the way through to delivery (kind of like a tour of the floor of a factory, or an illustrated company brochure, with possible references to external sources and clients).

The "tour guide" is speaking about what generally happens, and probably doesn't know any of the personnel involved at any stage personally (and it wouldn't make any sense to mention them even if the tour guide did know their names, unless their "active" names were need-to-know information for the people being shown around e.g. because it might be their induction).There are examples of this kind of speaking/vocab exercise to be found in most Business English textbooks.

Then again, I can also imagine this guide(book) saying: "WE do this...then we do that" (in active voice). :twisted:

Perhaps more interestingly, you could think of how plots of movies or plays are related (in Simple Present), and look at scenes where the main character (who remains the focus) is subjected to whatever treatment by e.g. the police, or a gang of thugs etc.

Anyway, take a look at a list of frequent verbs (not just lists of irregular verbs!) and try to imagine if they are used in the Simple Present passive. The frequency lists in the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary (3rd edition), the defining vocabularies in the backs of learner dictionaries generally, or the Longman Language Activator's list of Keywords might help cut down on the time needed for this task somewhat. Oh, and the COBUILD English Grammar has useful lists of verbs and phrasal verbs commonly used, and usually not used, in the passive.

There are other uses of this combination of forms to be sure. One that I thought of is with "preverbal adverbs of frequency":

He always gets beaten up at his new schools.
I never get promoted.


I imagine that most grammars focus more on past instances of the passive, however.