Teacher Discussion Forums

Hi

The nuts and bolts of the Active/Passive can be some what dry for students, so I like to emphasize the natural use of the Active/Passive

a) when who is not important
b) when we don't know who
c) when we don't want to say who

I'm putting together a ten question quiz for my business students.
'What's better in the following situations - the Active or the Passive?"

e.g.
Your boss, in his usual state of impatience, wants to know what is happening with the Smithers report. You secrectary is typing it as you speak. What are you more likely to say to your boss.
Choose a sentence that would sound more natural.
a) The secrectary is typying the Smithers report.
b) The Smithers report is being typed.

I hoping for a collective effort. One situation from each teacher should make a ten question quiz in no time.

Cheers Michael

I don't think saying, "IT is being typed" is going to throw the boss off of the secretary's scent for long now, is it!

That is, your example passive "alternative", which is presumably the "correct" choice you want your students to select, is not natural enough (i.e. actually way too "obvious" a thing to say) to be a real choice at all to my mind.

What then of your active sentence? Nothing wrong with it as far as I can see, except using the name of a colleague ("Grace is finishing typing it up as we speak, Sir!") or assuming joint responsibility ("We're still working on it/It's not quite ready yet") would seem more natural (than trying to "evade responsibility" through consequently suspect lingusitic means - which leads us back to my opening statement).

It might be better to just approach the passive (and especially the long vs. short passive) in terms of infomation structure (according to given vs. new information; or "natural/expected" subjects and their predicates etc) rather than through (perhaps too simplistic?) functional "explanations".

Certainly, I myself am wary of anything that even remotely resembles a transformation exercise (i.e that poses alternative ways of saying the "same" thing). Probably with the passive more than anywhere else, success or faliure in terms of understanding depends on the strength and integrity of "stand alone" examples, that make their meaning clear without any "need" for counter-examples and/or variations in context.