Chart of contents

Introduction, rationale and research questions... 3

Chapter 1 Context .. 8

Chapter 2 Theoretical Framework. 10

Chapter 3 Methodology ..... 23

3.1.1 Questionnaire .... 24

3.1.2 Survey ... 25

3.1.3 Quiz ... 25

3.2 Strategies to do . 26

3.2.1 Explanation of parts of speech using sentences .... 27

3.2.2 Playing a jeopardy game about parts of speech .... 28

3.3.3 Explanation, purpose and construction of the passive by using

lists of nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns 29
s
Chapter 4 Results and discussion... 32

4.1 1st instrument (Starting Quiz) ... 32

4.2 2nd instrument (Survey) 40

4.3 3rd instrument (Questionnaire for teachers) .. 46

4.4 2nd part of the first instrument (final quiz) . 50

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4.5 Results of methodology 59

4.5.1 Results of explanations of parts of speech 59

4.5.2 Results about playing jeopardy of parts of speech 66

4.5.3 Results of explanation, purpose and construction of the passive

by using lists of nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns. 69

Sources and references ... 82

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 Introduction

Since very early times, learning a second language has been a challenge for people

from all around the world, whether it is English or another language, this process is

something somewhat difficult for some people. As this research is focused on a specific

grammar topic, it would be a good idea to explain first of all what grammar is. Grammar is

a set of rules that govern a language, rules that help us to communicate through accurate

ideas. Once we know this, there is another topic which is also important to take into

account: how are we supposed to learn Grammar?

According to Chomsky, we are all born with an innate knowledge of grammar

that serves as the basis for all language acquisition. This theory is highly believable since

it is proved that this also applies for other languages. If we take into consideration this

idea, the only thing we would need to do is practicing the chunks of languages or structures

that students are given during their English class.

Learning specific grammar topics nowadays is considered for some people slightly

pass, since they argue that it is something related to old teachers who stuck to traditional

Grammar-Translation Method, and that a communicate approach is more reliable to use in

these days. More than that, grammar has always been present in any single structure a

professor could teach, but it is up to the teacher (or sometimes) to the school to choose

which approach or method they are using to accomplish their objectives.

Talking directly about what this project wants to demonstrate, the intention of this

is to show that passive voice (also known as scientific writing) is just another easy topic

to learn, as easy as learning how to identify a direct object or as easy as finding a verb in a

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sentence. It is planned that through some easy steps, students could identify some grammar

aspects that they will find useful in order to construct accurate passive voice sentences and

to learn all the possibilities that this voice (or grammar topic) could offer in order to sound

somewhat more natural.

At the same time and as a plus, it is expected that both teachers and students could

realise the grammars goodness as something useful, and forget or quit to that idea that

grammar is the worst part of learning a language.

Although passive voice is considered to be used mostly in scientific papers, the

truth is that passive voice is found in spoken language as well. Ideas such as: Wheres

your car? its being fix by my friend or That burger you are eating was prepared by

me, believe or not demonstrate that passive voice is not mostly used in a magazine or a

newspaper, as many webpages suggest. Passive voice could be another way to encourage

students to produce their English, since sometimes students are very keen on learning

different ways of expressing ideas in a more natural or native way.

According to Dovey: Language doesnt need to be seen as something that is

going to cause a long time to be learnt, but as something that is learnt just by the exposure

to it, the same as some activities such as walking among others

Referring to the steps which were mentioned before, they are aimed to make the

passive voice as easy as possible. These steps are divided as follows:

1. How to make students aware of parts of speech

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 2. How can students identify sentences (in order to switch it correctly to the

passive voice)

3. Using structure of by passive step by step once elements were identified

In the first step, it is intended to explain the different ways students can detect each

part of the elements they need to switch an active voice sentence into a passive one. At this

point, the article will explain some techniques teachers can apply to make students aware of

the parts of the speech, as well as the syntax that is always present in any well-written

sentences.

In the second step, this paper will explain how tenses can be identified, so it is

essential that at this point, students can have a better idea of what parts of speech are. Some

examples of activities are going to be described for teachers to use and for students to

understand what the importance of detecting the tense is in order to have an accurate

passive voice sentence.

The third and final step is focused to create make self-awareness in the teacher and

students about what the grammatical subject in the active voice is and what it means in the

passive voice as part of the predicate, since sometimes it has been mentioned that the

grammatical subject in the active voice is not required, but in some cases, some passive

voice sentences seem to be a bit empty or incomplete because they dont have this part

on their sentences.

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 Rationale

This study has the main purpose to demonstrate that passive voice is not as

difficult as many students (and sometimes teachers) may think. Based on that, this research

will try to prove through some easy-to-follow steps that passive voice is something that any

teacher could teach, as well as noticing that passive voice is not only another grammar topic

to learn, but a great opportunity to learn a whole new way to express ideas focusing on

what sometimes is not highlighted, the object, which at the end of the day is part of any

complete sentence (taking into consideration a full sentence, which in a grammatical

context could mean, to be provided with a subject, a verb and a subject.

This project has also the intention to demonstrate that passive voice is an

important topic in the process of learning, since many times students are not aware that a

second voice or way (as they could describe it) exists to express an idea, and that this

second option can also have particular attributes, such as avoiding a responsibility, among

others.

The decision of developing this specific topic was made, since I believe there is an

important gap when trying to find information that support the use of this voice, many web

pages just focus on explaining the structure of this voice, as well as highlighting the object

as the most important thing. It would be good to give this grammar lesson a deeper strategy

in order to know why the steps that are found in any single webpage or books have to be

followed.

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 At the end of this project, it is expected to conclude that passive voice is

effectively a kind of dark area in English learning, and because of this, it is sometimes a

difficult topic to cover, not only for students, but also for teachers.

Research Questions.

1. What would be the benefits for the students at the end of learning the passive

voice?

2. What are the components that students need to learn in order to understand what

passive voice is about?

3. What could be the technological resources that help learning the passive voice?

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 Chapter I

Context

This project will be carried out at Colegio Valentn Ruiz Obregn, a school

located in the downtown of the city, a school which has already 26 years of trajectory. It is

a school with the four educational stages, from Kindergarten up to high school. The school

has 15 groups in total, groups that are not more than 27 students per classroom. The main

purpose of the school (talking about the English area) is to create students who are capable

of communicating in English by having a good domain of the language, domain that is

reflected in a certification that is good for their university studies. This certification

includes the assessment of the 4 macro skills, so the students can assure to have a

comprehensive learning.

Talking about the students, they are 13 6th graders children, aged between 11 and

12, who have been learning English since 1st grade of kindergarten. They are a well-

behaved and united group, moderately interested in the language, which enjoy a lot doing

dynamics but when they have to take notes down, they might present a low interest. This

group also presents a minimal multilevel situation, although they are not very different,

there are just 4 students which sometimes require further explanations or repetitions to

understand a topic in a satisfactory way. None of the students are taking an extra English

course, so the only input they receive comes from their daily English classes. Classes take

place every day, from 10:15 in the morning to 11:55, which represents slightly more than 8

hours a week, 32 hours a month.

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 When they studied the kindergarten, they learnt mostly basic vocabulary related to

their school supplies, animals, colours, and toys; referring to basic phrases, they have learnt

expressions such as may Hello I am may I go to the bathroom among others. What

they have learning in those 3 years of kindergarten is basically an introduction to what they

were going to face on first grade of primary school. Their comprehensive learning process

started in 1st grade of primary school, when they were exposed for the first time to English

structures, an English teacher who is expected to have the whole class in the second

language and an evaluation criteria where they have accomplish a certain number of

activities, not only written activities, but spoken and listening ones as well.

They have been working with a MacMillan series called brainwave, which

comprehends from an A1 level to B1 level according to the Common European Framework

of Reference. This book is specially intended for children, since it has a great amount of

images and dynamics to develop in order to fully comprehend each topic.

This group has worked with perfect tenses before, so the use of the past participle

verbs is not considered to be a problem. In the case that they present problems with these

verbs, they also have a Macmillan tool, which is a wheel that shows the different tenses of a

certain verb (irregular), from simple present to past participle. They also count on a

dictionary which has a glossary of the most common irregular verbs at the back, a glossary

with all the conjugated forms of these irregular verbs.

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 Chapter II

Theoretical Framework

This investigation will offer some techniques to teach parts of speech to children

so they can be aware what the components they need to identify are. We will define what it

means when people refer to parts of speech. Parts of speech are the different words

included in a sentence. These words vary their meanings and their functions, therefore the

correct usage of them will lead to an accurate sentence. The parts of the speech are noun,

pronoun, verb, adverb, adjective, conjunction, interjection and preposition. On account of

the focus on our investigation, it may not be taught and explain all the parts of the speech,

but only what is essential in order to come up with passive sentences.

The learning of these parts is very important, since students have to familiarise

with the names in order to identify each correct element for the construction of the passive.

Since the students are already in 6th grade and they are supposed to know this, a simple

review of the most basic parts of the speech is going to be carried out.

In disagreement with Mark Twain, who stated: there are ten parts of speech and

they are all troublesome, we will cover just 4 parts of speech and emphasise on how easy

they are to learn.

Since they are very familiar with active voice sentences and they will need how to

learn the identification of a specific part of the speech in a sentence, it is impossible not to

mention that syntax is implicitly involved at this moment. The question here is: Do the

students need to learn the meaning of syntax?

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 Taking into consideration this question, it is quite important to say that many

English learners, specifically the ones that have been learning the language for years, they

might feel confused about what the meaning of the word is. The general idea the students

may have is that it is something they already know, they have learnt this at a certain

moment of their course, but at the end of the day they cant explain what this word means.

At this point, we could say that it is necessary for them to know what this word implies,

since they are advanced level students.

On the other hand, this research is focused on 6th grade children, aged 11 years

old, which suggests the non-existing necessity of teaching this. To make this clearer, it is

not necessary have students deal with a concept such as syntax, since it could be confusing

for them, so it is going to be taught as the order of the words.

What I have planned in order to achieve the objective of this project, is to offer a

basic and easy-to-learn concept so they can remember it by the time they have to

struggle/empathise with the passive voice.

According to the idea of Matthew Lubin and his post about teaching syntax to

young ESL, he stated: Its important that young ESL students recognize word order and

sentence structure. As students get older and progress with English, it becomes more

difficult to correct syntax problems.

This situation is very common in people who have received little feedback in

assignments, presentations or projects, since some teachers are very acquiescent at the time

of making some corrections in order to keep the student motivated and confident. As a

result of this, fossilisation is present in some advanced students, and by the time they need

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to correct certain ideas they have learnt and they were never told they were wrong, a real

problem can be presented, since they have been mispronouncing or misspelling a certain

word for a long time. Based on this situation, the concept of syntax is intended to be taught.

Another purpose of learning syntax is that students become familiar with the way

the write the sentences in their language, and specifically in this case, Spanish contains a

very different syntax to English, due to the origin it has. For example, students in their

mother tongue (Spanish) are quite used to write a sentence like the next one:

- Me gusta el carro azul.

As we can see, the syntax this sentence follows is the next one:

Subject + verb + noun + adjective.

Learning syntax properly will have students avoid this kind of mistakes, which

they dont even realise until they are pointed out. Syntax follows patterns which are

repeated, although sometimes syntax is not present when referring to the spoken language.

Syntax is also a value tool to avoid mistakes like the previous one, considering that at an

early stage of the learning process, students tend to translate ideas literally, which

contributes to misunderstanding of ideas.

For reasons like the ones mentioned before, we conclude that syntax will be an

important part of this project, since we are talking specifically about a grammar structure.

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 Using the passive voice include some benefits, which may vary from student to

student, but in order to mention some of them and show that this voice is something useful,

passive voice is a great way to deal with irregular verbs, since all the grammatical

structures are likely to use participle verbs, so this voice is the perfect excuse to deal with

them and get rid of the idea that irregular verbs cannot simply be learnt.

On the other hand, some ideas may not be very clear, because of the lack of

information according to the doer of the action. Sometimes ideas may not include a

person but they include value information about a specific topic, though, and for that reason

the omission of an idea just because there is not a subject or a name could be a considerable

waste/loss of information.

The next explanation gives us a better idea of what has just been written above:

The passive voice is preferable if the performer cannot easily be named or if the

performer is irrelevant to the discussion, as in the following examples:

- Up to 90% of the energy in light bulbs is wasted in the form of heat.

- The first edition of Freud's earliest writings on dreams was published in 1899.

- Drosophila melanogaster has been one of the most extensively studied species in

genetics research.

In the first sentence, the author's attempts to name the performer would be

awkward; in the second sentence, the author assumes the reader will not be interested in

the name of the publisher; and in the third sentence, the performer (researchers) is

obvious.

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 When naming the performer would prove difficult or unnecessary, the passive

voice works well.

Another benefit this voice brings is the highlight of the grammatical object as

the most important thing, and this is maybe the most important use of this voice. It is very

important to mention that the object is not always a thing or an animal, or something

different to a human being, but something which is the receiver of another action done by

the grammatical subject. Keeping this in mind can help to understand the purpose of

writing sentences with another perspective where the indirect object may become the most

important thing in a sentence.

Since students are very used to a person at the beginning of each sentence they

write, passive voice does the opposite to give an appropriate focus to the object. As we

mention before, the object is not always an object, it may be considered an object because

of the place it takes in the sentence. In order to have a better idea of this, lets check the

next example:

- Roman guards whipped Jesus

According to the syntax of this sentence, we can clearly conclude that the previous

sentence is written in active voice, but if it is analysed a little bit closer, the doer of the

actions is not quite clear, since no names are mentioned or specified, and since most people

know who Jesus was, the change of the structure in this specific sentence into a passive

voice composition may end up in a better and appropriate sentence, considering that the

Roman guards are not important in our sentence, but Jesus is, and for that same reason, the

roman guards can also be omitted taking advantage of the passive voice.

14
 A sentence like the following one:

Jesus was whipped

Demonstrates the main idea in a clearer way and gives the focus where it should

belong.

As we have mentioned before, the passive voice is also called scientific writing,

due to its use in scientific processes such as methods and procedures to be followed when

doing an experiment. Taking this into account, the purpose of using the passive voice in

this method is also to focus in the procedure, in other words, in the actions that need to be

done in order to successfully make or develop something. By using this, a clearer focus on

the actions can be perceived. In order to demonstrate that, the following idea reinforces our

previous statement:

When discussing an experimental procedure in the Methods section, a researcher

might write:

- The honey bees were kept in a humidified chamber at room temperature

overnight.

- The solution was heated to 90C for approximately 30 minutes and then allowed

to cool.

The sentences could be converted to active voice by writing the following:

- We kept the honey bees in a humidified chamber at room temperature overnight.

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 - We heated the solution to 90C for approximately 30 minutes and then allowed it

to cool.

Does the active voice shorten the sentences? No. (In fact, the second sentence is

one word longer than it is in the original version. The active voice is not automatically

more concise than the passive.) Does the active voice add clarity? Perhaps, although the

reader may be justified in assuming that the authors are also the performers.

The active voice has changed the focus, however, from the research to the

researchers, an emphasis the author may not desire in the Methods section, where the

general topic is the research materials and procedures.

With the information we have just presented, our idea of demonstrating that

passive voice can bring benefits to learning by the time our students want to express an idea

properly gains strength, since it is not just a style of writing, but a whole-different way to

express and adequate our words according to the purpose we are intended to have. Passive

voice offers us a way of writing sentences when we lack of certain information that may be

important to have when writing an active voice sentence; passive voice can be used when

the doer is not known or not important, or sometimes when it is obvious and it is not

needed to repeat the person or thing and of course when the grammatical object of an active

voice sentence may be more important than the doer of the action, because of the

ignorance of a name in the doer or simply because the grammatical object is more

16
important than the doer, as we showed in the example of Jesus being whipped by Roman

guards.

As we have mentioned before, students will need to call things for their names, so

the use of parts of speech is going to be essential in order to detect each part so they could

come up with a passive voice sentence.

Parts of speech is something that many students dont know, or when they do, they

just identify the most important ones such as nouns, pronouns, verbs and adjectives. Since

the passive voice doesnt need too many requirements, students will learn just the ones

mentioned before, considering that teaching all the parts might be confusing for them, and

at a certain point, unnecessary as well.

First of all, students need to know what things are called noun, pronoun, verb and

adjective, thus the relation of these parts of speech with the passive voice is going to be

explained at the same time a brief explanation of each one of them is provided

Nouns

When talking about nouns, it is important to mention that nouns sometimes are

naming words (such as proper names) where a person carries out an action in order to

demonstrate that someone did something, as long as we were talking about active voice

sentences. It is quite important to mention that a common mistake for students is to identify

a noun as a pronoun, which means not a big difference but talking specifically about parts

17
of speech, it is always important to highlight that nouns is a separated category from

pronouns. Examples of pronouns could be: a cat, a ball, a school, Peter

When giving examples like the ones given before, students can start to create a

concrete about what nouns are about. In the best of the cases, they will be able to tell the

teacher that nouns can be animals, people or places.

Going a little bit further in this section, it is always important to mention students

that nouns can be found in two different ways, whether as plurals or singulars, something

that shouldnt result a major problem. It is important to emphasise this ways since a

common mistake in passive voice is when they have to conjugate verbs. Mistakes like the

following one are sometimes present:

- The vacuum cleaner are being emptied

- Projects is prepared on time.

Examples like the previous ones are very common, so the focus on this part by the

time we teach this is going to be mirrored in students passive voice sentences. As the last

point talking about nouns, a reminder that nouns could be possessive can also help so they

dont get confused when they face a structure like the next one:

- My mom is preparing Peters dinner.

Taking this into consideration will help students have a better understanding about

what a noun is and the different ways these could be found.

Pronouns

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 Pronouns are considered to be the same as a noun without being quite accurate. In

other words, and as Wikihow suggests:

Sometimes, a noun is not always named. Words that do not directly name a

person, place, thing, or idea, but take the place of a word that does, are pronouns

As we can read, personal pronouns are words that are used specifically when we

dont have a name or a clear doer of an action. These pronouns are quite used, since

sometimes it is easier to write a personal pronoun instead of a name, whether the difficulty

to come up with a name or because of the lack of knowledge about proper names in the

target language. The process of learning these pronouns is one of the most basic things

when learning the language, so it is expected not to struggle with this step.

Pronouns are divided into 5 different categories which are:

- Personal pronouns: Refer to specific doers whether people or things.

- Possessive Pronouns: Refer to someones belonging

- Relative pronouns: are used to introduce a subordinate clause

- Demonstrative pronouns: identify, point to, or refer to nouns.

- Reflexive pronouns: To highlight the pronoun itself

Since we have different types of pronouns and might result confusing learning all

of them, we are going to focus on personal pronouns, considering that they will the ones we

will be using to develop our passive structures.

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 Verbs

Verbs is maybe the most important component when talking about passive voice

sentences, since a change of tense could mean a different idea to the one that was expressed

in the active voice.

Verbs are the actions the grammatical subject does, actions that are carried out to

show an idea or a purpose. According to words of a paper made by the Idaho State

University:

Verbs express doing or being or having

The previous idea seems to be quite accurate, since it mentions the 3 unique

purposes of a verb.

Verbs are quite important in the construction of the passive voice; it has an

essential role in order to express an accurate idea in a determined tense. This part may

represent the most difficult part to learn, since students struggle to identify regular and

irregular verbs, and when referring to irregular verbs, it is a whole challenge for some of

them to memorise the past participle tense of verbs. Once the students memorise some of

the most used verbs, they can start to produce their own passive voice sentences, since one

of the obstacles is to write a complete sentence because of the lack of the participle form of

a verb.

The good use of verbs is going to open a wide repertoire of different options in

which passive voice can be used, covering from simple present until a future perfect

progressive. Keeping SMART criteria in mind in our research is essential, so following the

20
step of having something achievable deserves to be a must for this project, so that learning

3 basic tenses will represent success in this research.

Adjectives

Adjectives are words used to describe or modify a noun. The role of adjectives in

passive voice is not important, since it is something not essential in the construction of a

passive voice sentence. However, they need to be taken into consideration by the time we

want to switch an idea from active into passive, since sometimes it is not specified what to

do with an adjective when writing passive voice.

Adjectives are something similar to collocations, in the aspect they have to be

written with their pertinent noun, as long as the omission of an adjective may deliver in a

different idea.

An example of this is presented:

I drive a red carbon-fibre car. (Active voice)

A red car is driven (passive voice)

In the previous sentence, the meaning of the sentence in the passive voice changes,

since the sentence doesnt include all of the adjectives mentioned in the first idea (active

voice), therefore, it is not quite specific which red car and this may deliver in a problem, in

the case of a real-life example.

It is always important to identify the noun (more specifically, the direct object) by

doing the question what, and at the same time, consider all the adjectives that are used to

describe the direct object so the meaning in the target voice doesnt vary.

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 With this part of speech, I finish the explanation of what is planned in order to teach

students the parts of speech that they are going to be using.

22
 Chapter III

Methodology

This investigation is considered to be both quantitative and qualitative. Since this

investigation deals with the idea of having passive voice as something unnecessary and

confusing, it can be determined that is part qualitative, considering that it will focus in

refuting these ideas by giving examples of activities that are easy to handle and fully

removed that idea about passive voice.

On the other hand, considering that some numbers are going to be gotten out of a

statistical test, and with those numbers start to work on the things we want to prove, it is

also considered to be a quantitative research work. Some of the tools used in this research,

such as a statistical text, as well as a survey for students that have already learnt passive

voice, reinforces our idea of getting some information out of those papers so we can make

conclusions by using clear numbers.

Talking about the instruments, different tools will be used:

*A questionnaire

*A survey

*Quizzes

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 - Questionnaire

According to Dr Godfred Annum of KNUST Gh, a questionnaire is:

A data collection instrument mostly based in normative surveys.

This is a systematically prepared form of document with a set of questions

deliberately designed to elicit responses from respondents or research informants

for the purpose of collecting data or information.

It is a form of inquiry document, which contains a systematically

compiled and well organised series of questions intended to elicit the information

which will provide insight into the nature of the problem under study

It is a form that contains a set of questions on a topic or group of

topics designed to be answered by the respondents

The respondents are the population samples of the study; the answers

provided by the respondents constitute the data for the report.

The type of questionnaire that will be used is an unstructured questionnaire, since it

allows to respondent to write whatever they think about the questions in the questionnaire

The purpose of the questionnaires created for the teacher is to get real and first-hand

information about the ideas and impressions that teachers have towards the passive voice.

By having this questionnaire done, a more accurate vision of this situation will be presented

and consequently, a better product that will help teachers to deal with passive voice. The

questionnaire will be given to three different teachers of three different levels in order to

have different types of points of view.

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 - Survey

According to the Pennsylvania State University:

A survey is a research method for collecting information from a selected group of people

using standardized questionnaires or interviews. While many people think of a questionnaire as the

survey, the questionnaire is just one part of the survey process. Surveys also require selecting

populations for inclusion, pre-testing instruments, determining delivery methods, ensuring validity,

and analysing results.

This part will be carried out with the help of some questions that are going to be

asked to students who have already learnt this topic before, with the purpose of knowing

more about the obstacles they had by learning this, as well as the opportunities or

advantages they consider they got out of this. It is expected to interview from 3 to 5

students, all of them with different ideas towards the English learning (since some of them

consider it whether attractive or boring)

- Quizzes

The web page, www.explorable.com, a web site which specialises in research

methods and works, states:

Statistical analysis is fundamental to all experiments that use statistics as a

research methodology. Most experiments in social sciences and many important

experiments in natural science and engineering need statistical analysis. Statistical

analysis is also a very useful tool to get approximate solutions when the actual process is

highly complex or unknown in its true form.

25
 Matching these ideas to our investigation, it is basically intended that the pair of

quizzes bring us some valuable information.

Two different quizzes are going to be applied. The first one is with the purpose of

highlighting their initial point at the beginning of the investigation. This first quiz is going

to include some questions in order to know what they know about passive voice, as well as

some exercises where they will have to change ideas between active or passive.

A second quiz will be applied with the purpose of highlighting the improvement the

students have gained, to show how able they are to write ideas using the passive voice and

to demonstrate how easy this voice can be used. It is expected that most of students have a

clear idea at the end of the series of exercises that will be applied in order to learn this

topic.

- Strategies and exercises to do

3 different exercises will be used in order to make the students learn the use and

purpose of the passive voice. The exercises are the next ones:

- Explanation of parts of speech using sentences

- Playing a jeopardy game about parts of speech

- Explanation, purpose and construction of the passive by using lists of nouns,

verbs, adjectives and pronouns.

26
 1. Explanation of parts of speech:

As our medullar part, a definition and explanation of parts of speech, specifically

noun, pronoun, verbs and adjectives are going to be done. With the help of some examples

and a brainstorming about each part of speech, it is expected to have students ready to

identify some of these parts in ordinary sentences. Once they are able to identify each part

of speech, the next part for them to understand is the way these parts are written, this

means, the way these words follow an order in a sentence. To reinforce this idea, some

sentences will be written on the board without any order, so they can identify parts of

speech and rearrange them in an order which make sense for them. As complementary

activities, students will be given some sentences for them to copy in their notebook where

they will have to circle what they are expected to find, whether a noun, a pronoun, a verb or

an adjective. An example of this is provided.

Find the adjective in the next sentence:

old
- My mom is washing the blanket

By solving some of these exercises, it is expected they can fully understand this

part. As we mention before, a brainstorm will be carried out so list of words they got could

be useful for them to complete the exercise. The correct application and understanding of

this step is essential in our objective of constructing passive voice sentences, so it is quite

important for students to get familiar with the previous elements before moving forward to

the second activity.

27
 Playing jeopardy about parts of speech

Games are known to be a good way to learn, considering that they engages students

to something they want to find out or solve. Since sometimes these games are challenging,

it is quite attractive for students to carry out these games, where the learning process

sometimes may be hidden (or implicit)

R.F. Mackay, on his paper about Panelists at Stanford discussion say using games as

an educational tool provides opportunities for deeper learning, states that:

Bringing games to bear in education is not a matter of dumbing down. Constance

Steinkuehler, an associate professor of digital media at the University of Wisconsin-

Madison and co-director of the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) center there, noted that

it turns out games are hard. If indeed humans think immeasurably better as part of a

network than on their own, then games are an obvious terrain in which to set minds free

and let them wander around, interacting with whatever or whomever they encounter.

Since this research work is carried out having young adolescents (12 years old) as

the subjects of this, it is quite important to keep them attracted to this topic, so based on

that, a game has been chosen in order to make this interesting for them.

Jeopardy is basically a game of questions and answers where the participants have

to choose among categories (in this case about parts of speech) and an amount of points for

them to win at the end of each question. What make this game interesting is the fact that it

will be carried out in a computer that, with the help of a projector, an image will be

displayed and give the impression of being in a contest. To make this more interesting, the

classroom is going to be divided in two groups (specifically boys vs girls, since this always

28
motivates students to participate in a very exciting way in order to feel proud about their

genre, something that encourages children a lot).

The purpose of this game is reinforcing what they have previously learnt in the

explanations and exercises about the parts of speech.

- Explanation, purpose and construction of the passive by using lists of nouns,

verbs, adjectives and pronouns.

This point represents the most important strategy/activity in order to reach the

objective of this research work. First of all, a brief explanation about the passive voice will

be given in order to know the purpose of this, as well as how this voice can be identified.

The second part of this point will be to get students familiar with the construction of this

time, since it is probably something they have not done before. A clear structure of this

voice will be provided where the teacher will highlight the names of each component of

this structure (parts of speech) so students can become familiar with them at the same time

they call things by their correct name and identify their positions in the sentence.

The next part will be to make students realise what the active voice is. At this part,

they will understand that active voice is the structure they have been using most part of the

time, since they have always focused in the subject rather than the object. Once they are

aware what the active voice is about, they will start to produce their first sentences in

passive voice, by changing some active voice ideas into passive ones. In order to make

students confident and give them the impression that active voice is not something difficult,

29
easy examples are going to be provided by the teacher. An example like the following one

will be used:

a) The teacher reads a book (active)

- A book is read (by the teacher)

The previous example shows how easy passive voice can be, and the different sense

it gives to an idea by highlighting the object and avoiding the doer

In order to reinforce what they have learnt about passive at this point, an activity

will be done, where they are going to work in groups and each group is going to use a

cardboard to make a list whether nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbs. A brief example of

this idea is shown:

Verbs Nouns Pronouns Adjectives

-Run - Cat -I - Pretty

-Play - Albert*** - He - Fast

-Eat - Sunglasses - They - boring

At this point, students are going to cut out each word to have them separated and a

second activity with this cut out will be performed. Using their cut outs, one member each

team is going to go to the board and paste their word in order to form a passive sentence.

The purpose of this is to create sentences that result interesting to students, sentences that

may lack of sense but that could result funny for them so they enjoy the activity. Many

30
examples are going to be done in order to practice the parts of speech, at the same time they

get to know with the structure of the passive voice. As students gain confidence, more

difficult examples are thought to be done, examples where a person could be the object,

since this is something that students sometimes find difficult

***Taking this into consideration and the example that was mentioned in the part of

the nouns above, Albert could be mostly considered as a person (noun) or doer of the

action. A problem for students is when they find an example like the next one.

- The company I work for pays me every month

At this point, students might be confused, since the doer of the action is already a

thing without realising that it is impossible to have this sentence in the passive voice

starting with the company. Because of examples like these, it is important to highlight

that people can also be considered as a thing, but its going to be called grammatical

object in order to avoid misunderstandings about if a person is a thing. Once they have

understood this, it is expected to have an example like the next one:

- Im paid every two months (by the company I work for).

31
 Chapter IV

Results and discussion

This chapter will present all the information that was gotten from the instruments

applied, where the purpose of this project is going to be cleared. Some impressions are also

going to be explained so the reader can understand in a satisfactory way, all the steps that

were developed as well as the output gotten.

In order to start with the result of the first instrument applied, some statistical facts

will be displayed so we can have a better idea what the initial point of this project was.

1st instrument : Quiz

As we mentioned before, the purpose of the first quiz is to give a clear idea what the

initial point of the students is, in order to know the improvement they have done so we can

compare it at the end. The quiz which was applied has 8 questions which will try to offer a

clearer idea about the schemata the students have about the topic of this investigation, as

well as knowing their position towards English learning. The results are listed below:

1. Do you enjoy English Class?

Do you enjoy English class?

38% Yes
no
62% some

0%

32
 As we can see, the first question was something easy so they can gain some

confidence as they continue answering the questions and do not feel frightened, since they

were a little bit scared by the time they were told they were going to do a little quiz.

This first question tries to clear what their position is and if they are really

interesting in the class, since many times it is know that they learning English just because

is another subject in the schools syllabus.

The result of this question is not very positive, but they are not disappointing, either,

since nobody answer they do not enjoy class.

Some extra information that was not gathered was the reason why they answered

some. Asking them a few days later the application of this first test, the answer was that

they prefer to go to the audio-visual room, since there sometimes some videos are

displayed, as well as some games and music they enjoy listening to.

2. Do you feel comfortable writing sentences in English?

Do you feel comfortable writing sentences in

English?

15%

Yes
16%
No
Some
69%

33
 As you can see in this graphic, a high number of students is used to work using

sentences as something to develop some knowledge by the time they learn something new.

It could be due to the time I have been working with them, since I am their teacher since 5 th

grade, so they have empathy to this way of working. It is good to highlight that they have

not learnt what they know just by writing sentences, but by having chats about topics of

their books by making them interesting, and setting them in some situations where they

have to think and feel as part of the given situations. This activity and other ones were

carried out during the last course and are being carried out in this one as well.

Since the purpose of this research work is learning to develop passive voice

structures/sentences, it might not represent a problem to give students some prompts and re

writing them in order. Although passive voice is not based just on writing sentence, I

believe this is a way where they can acquire some confidence with the structure and the

production of some ideas using this voice, and as the time goes by, they are going to start to

use it in their oral production, whether implicitly or explicitly.

3. Are you familiar with the components of a sentence?

Are you familiar with the components of a

sentence?

23%
Yes
0%
No
Some
77%

34
 This question was in order to know if they called the things by their name (talking

about parts of speech) and to find out if they are familiar with the structure of a basic

sentence. As we can see, most of the students answered yes since they know what the most

common parts of a sentence are, where they mentioned the subject, the object and the

complement. When I went somewhat deeper, some of them where asked if there was

something else about that, and they answered that is what they know so far.

On the other hand, another purpose of this question was to know if they can identify

the components of a sentence, since they will have to deal with some parts of speech when

writing passive voice sentence, where they will have to find some elements so they can

transform their ideas into another voice.

Since they are 6th graders, I do consider that they are supposed to know about this

topic, where they can easily identify by their names each part of a sentence, but with the

result of this question, the idea that some students, even those ones who are in an advanced

level are not familiar with some basic concepts of English.

4. Do you know what parts of speech are?

Do you know what parts of speech are?

0

Yes
No
Some

100%

35
 At this question, a clear no was presented, and one more time this result reinforces

the idea of not knowing what things are. As we mentioned before, they know some

elements such as the subject, the object and the complement, but they do not know that they

all belong to some parts of speech. By the end of this research, it is expected that at least 90

percent of the students know what the elements or the parts of the speech are.

5. If so, can you mention them?

If so, can you mention them?

0

Yes
No
Some

100%

This question is related to the previous one, so the same result was gotten.

36
 6. Are you familiar with verbs conjugation?

Are you familiar with verbs' conjugation?

0% 15%
Yes
No
Some
85%

This graphic clearly shows a positive result, where a high percentage of students

answered positively. It can be deduced that this answer is due to all the work the students

have done the previous year, since they had to deal a lot with structures of present perfect

with just, already, yet, ever and never and as a result of this, they used verbs in participle,

verbs that are a key part of the structure they are intended to learn. Last year, they were

given a sheet of paper with a list of the most important regular and irregular verbs, where

they can find all the conjugations as well as the meaning in Spanish.

On the other hand, one of the first topics they have learnt during this year was

Present Perfect Progressive, something that did not represent a problem for them, but

something they felt they have struggle with. Although the mentioned structured does not

deal with past participle verbs, P.P.P. (present perfect progressive) was compared to Present

Perfect so they could notice some differences, but there was a part where some students

presented some problems by recalling some irregular verbs.

That problem worked as the perfect reason to oblige them to learn all the past

participles of the paper they were given, because by the end of the month (October) they

37
were going to have a dictation of verbs where they will have to write the verbs they are

told, and the conjugations of those verbs in simple past and past participle as well.

According to the result of this questions and the task they have to do by the end of

the month, I can conclude that verbs conjugation may not represent a problem.

7. Do you know what active voice is?

Do you know what active voice is?

0%

Yes
No
Some

100%

Answer is clear, and one more time they dont know that all those sentences and

ideas they have been saying and expressing throughout these years are examples of active

voice. Although it is important to highlight that no student know what active voice is until

the moment they have to learn passive voice, it cant be taken as something negative, or

perhaps something they should know by this time, since they are 6th graders but they

continue being students of a primary level. When they were asked after the quiz if they had

an idea what the active voice was, they thought of it as something that requires being

38
energetic when talking, one of them commented that they needed to be as German or

Russian people, considering that they seem to have a strong accent.

8. Do you know what passive voice is?

Do you know what passive voice is?

Yes
No
Some

Since they did not know what the active voice was, an answer like this was expected

to be reflected. By this time, they might be intrigued about what the active and the passive

voice are, and this may result beneficial considering that some students that enjoy English

class could surf on internet and look for the answer to the question they were asked at

school. In case they do that, I considered that it might be confusing for them to learn alone,

since they have an idea of sentences as something that there is always a person doing

something. Any idea they could obtain out of their own search might be considered as

beneficial, since they might notice that the first thing at the beginning of this structures is

not a thing, but an object followed by an action, and when possibly, they might notice there

is not a person in the sentence.

39
 2nd instrument: Survey

In contrast with the previous results, now the results of a survey are going to be

exposed, although it is necessary to specify that these are the opinions of a different group

(14 high school students) that have just learnt the passive voice some weeks ago. This

survey is to show the feelings and thoughts towards passive voice from high school

students.

*** The results of the group that is pretended to learn passive voice are going to be

showed at the end with the final quiz***

Question 1

What is your point of view about passive

voice?

7% Interesting
7% Easy
29%
7% Sth formal
Confusing
Important
22% Difficult
14%
Good
7% 7% Different

As we can see in the first question of our survey, it is good to highlight that most of

the students considered this voice as something interesting to learn, since they argue that it

is a different way to express things, and they also highlighted one of the purposes of this

investigation, they mentioned that it is a good way to express their ideas but by focusing on

40
the object when they think it is more important than a person or doer. This result may

seem to be a little bit controlled, since they answered what this investigation has been

exposing from the beginning, but it was not controlled, and the papers with the results are

going to be scanned and added for the inspection of them.

In the second place about this question, students answered that they think is

important to learn, arguing that it is a good way to focus on the things, as well as other

participant answered that it is important to express your ideas better and the last one argued

that it is important since native people use it.

According to the previous results, students could learn the importance and benefits

of using the passive voice, since based on the conclusion of this first question, I can say that

they learnt this in the way it was intended to be, focusing on the object to highlight it or just

as another way to express your ideas instead of the typical sentences that starts with a

person doing something. In view of the fact that most of them considered this voice

interesting, it was a successful class, something that motivates me to do the same but with

the group of six grade, a group of children that might not be fully aware of the use of

English, and of course, of the different ways they can express their ideas.

Going back to the result of this question, the third place is Easy, arguing that it

was not a big problem when writing short ideas, but that it may become difficult with long

ideas. The other person just mentioned that it was easy, but wide, maybe due to the use of

verbs and by writing who, he/she didnt specify.

About the rest of the answers, they were answers where just one of them gave ideas,

where they refer to the topic as something different, good, difficult, confusing and formal.

41
 Question 2

Do you think you can use now more passive

voice when talking?

7%

22% Yes
No
Maybe/perhaps
57%
don't know
14%

This question tries to be real and accurate, and based on that, I specified about the

use of passive voice when speaking, since it is a more natural way to produce, instead of

writing, where they may have the time to think of an idea and express it through their

papers. Even though this question is more related to the oral production, a positive result

was gotten, since fifty seven percent answered yes, but their arguments varied not much.

Among the different arguments of the yes answers, we found that they can use it

but not all the time, which I think is a good answer, considering that not all the time objects

are going to be the most important thing in a conversation. Another argument was that

some of the students have the idea that this voice sounds more professional, due to the short

number of people using it and it is a way to sound different and prepared. Another student

answer that he/she did that unconsciously, something that may be surprising, but not too

much, because some of them have a good level of English, they express their ideas quite

42
good, but as we have mentioned previously, they dont know the name of the concepts or

certain structures.

The second place is used by the Maybe/perhaps, arguing that they know the

structure, but they think they may use it, they are not sure. What I understand out of this

answer is that they dont feel encouraged enough to use it, because they might feel afraid to

commit mistakes, which is quite common when learning a new structure and you are forced

to produce your own ideas. This problem could be summarised as the lack of fluency as

well as accuracy to believe in your own ideas, which as I mentioned before, it is very likely

to happen when learning a language.

The third place in this question is represented by the No, where the students

argued that they dont practice English outside the classroom, since they dont have the

necessity of doing so, as well as the lack of vocabulary in the language, but he/she didnt

specify why, which could be understood as a lack of knowledge of the verbs in participle,

or the misunderstanding of the passive structure.

Given the previous results and with the help of this graphic, it can clearly be

deduced that they can produce passive voice sentences/structures not only in written tasks,

but in oral activities as well. Something that definitely needs to be done with them is to

encourage them to talk and produce more orally, which in my point of view; it is the best

way to acquire fluency and accuracy

43
 3rd Question

What were the obstacles you faced when

learning passive voice?

6%
6% 6% The structure
Verbs
5% Tenses
44%
5% Nothing
Identifying subject
Some words
28% Didn't say

At this question, many answers were gotten, and some students answered more than

just one obstacle when learning this. Seven different obstacles were given, where according

to the students, the most common one is represented by the structure, with the forty four

percent of the students saying that it was the tricky part of this. In my point of view, it is

normal to have this obstacle as the most common answer, and this may be due to the

repetition of the active voice in all the ideas they have come up with during these years of

their learning process.

Although structure is not something difficult, since it is something that is repeated

once and again, they may have fossilised that idea of the subject + a verb + a complement,

and as we mentioned before, fossilised ideas are difficult to deal with, even those students

who have been learning for many years.

44
 On the second place of this question, students answered that verbs is something they

have to struggle with, since they have to have learnt (perhaps as something compulsory) the

past participles of those verbs they need to for this. The problem is not as big as they think,

taking into account that not all the verbs are irregular, they have regular ones too, where the

only thing they have to do is add an ING ending in order to convert it to past participle.

They problem might come when they come up with ideas where irregular verbs are

required, but, in order to combat this problem, they were given a sheet with the most

irregular verbs and all their tenses.

On the other hand, we have many different answers, all of them just given by one

student, where they believe that tenses may be a problem, since sometimes they have to

change into the passive voice some sentences, but they dont detect the tense in the original

idea, and they dont have an accurate answer because they didnt detect what the tense was.

Another problem for the minority was identifying the subject, and this can be

understood as the failure to find who carries out the action in the active voice, because they

believe that it is always a person who does an action. As we have mentioned, the subject is

not represented by a person, but by the component we have at the beginning of a sentence

followed by a verb.

The last three answers where the problem to understand some words, which I think

is not something related to the passive voice itself, but to the lack of vocabulary the

students may have; another minor result was nothing, which means he/she fully understood

the topic and on the last concept we have didnt say, maybe because he/she doesnt want to

be exposed.

45
 3rd Instrument: Questionnaire (for teachers)

The idea of a questionnaire for teachers is to enrich this research work with the

valuable opinion of experienced teachers, their opinions are meant to be useful as well as

reinforcing in order to share the same idea as this research work suggests, and to prove the

points that were here stated, points and opinions not only of my idea, but of some teachers

towards this topic. This questionnaire has 4 questions which are going to be analysed one

by one with the opinions of each teacher in order to compare their comments and see the

perspectives since different points of view, since we have a teacher of primary school, a

teacher of secondary school and a teacher of high school. We are going to name them PST

(primary school teacher), SST (secondary school teacher) and HST (High school teacher)

Question 1: Do you think passive voice is useful for students? Why?

PST: I think every topic is useful, if they want to have enough expressions,

information, grammar structures, etc. they must learn everything in order to use the topics

in the correct context.

SST: In my point of view, it depends on the students, their needs, if they want to be

proficient, they need to acquire this knowledge, and it is useful because they can see this in

movies, songs, media, etc. and they need to know what it means.

HST: Yes, passive voice gives them more options and ways to express their ideas.

In this questions, I agree with the three opinions, since they all say that learning this

is useful, some of them more than others, but they consider it something important as well

as something that can be used to express their ideas differently.

46
 Question 2: What do you think the obstacles are when learning the passive

voice?

PST: Maybe the grammar structure for them, they find difficult a sentences in

which the subject is not so important but the action. Another thing that Ss find difficult is

that passive voice can be in many tenses and if they lack of awareness about conjugation, it

might be difficult for them.

SST: The tenses. They must know properly the rules of each tense in order to

distinguish and do not get wrong when writing or speaking. Another obstacle is that

sometimes they do not know the verb to be which is the auxiliary of passive voice.

HST: I guess the differences between Spanish and English. Students still thinking in

Spanish.

Although its true that there are some components that may turn passive voice into

something confusing, there is just one coincidence in the teachers opinion, and it is the use

of different tenses, which as we have mentioned in previous pages, and according to the

high school students opinions, they may change a sentence from active to passive to focus

on the object, but the transformation of the tense may deliver in a mistake due to the lack of

identification of the original tense.

Another aspect mentioned by the PSC was the structure of this tense. In previous

words, we mentioned that they are quite used to start sentences where the first thing they

write is the person, as well as a verb in the second place, something that at a certain point

may vary and because of this, fall into a confusion and block their minds. As last opinion,

47
the SST also mentioned the conjugation of the verb to be, something that is essential in the

construction of passive voice ideas.

3rd question: Can passive voice replace the use of active voice as the daily

language to be used?

PST: Passive voice is useful when reading or writing but its not so common when

speaking so I think we as teachers should teach the accurate use for each tense and when it

is more usual or not. Active voice is required as well in many cases.

SST: If so, people will need to get used to that

HST: I dont think so; P.V. and A.V. should be used in same quantity.

Although the purpose of this investigation is not to prove that passive voice can be

used daily, the purpose of this question was to imagine a situation where passive voice

dominated the spoken language, but as some of the teachers suggest, passive voice has

some purposes and some uses that may not allow it to be used more than the active voice.

This situation is unimaginable as well, since teachers all the time foster the use of the active

voice, although they do not do it on purpose, the use of active voice still dominates the

spoken language.

Something that is worth to write in this investigation is that since I (the writer of this

project) have been working and reading about passive voice, I have noticed a difference in

the way I express my ideas. I use the passive voice much more compared to the beginning

of this project. This hasnt brought me any problems or misunderstandings but I have to

admit that the use of this voice has come unconsciously and naturally.

48
 4th Question: Should active voice be taught at school or should it be learnt

implicitly?

PST: There is a huge controversy if teach grammar implicitly or explicitly. I am

for teaching grammar (any kind of topic) explicitly. I agree with the author Lilia

Zapolova who says that grammar has to be taught explicitly because our language is not

similar to English even if the students have the chance to practice English outside the

classroom, we have to teach them in order to provide them the correct structures and they

will reinforce those structures daily by listening and practice them.

SST: I think it should be taught at school just like the other parts of topics of

grammar, because it is a part of the English language.

HST: It depends on students It should be learned both ways.

In this last question, everybody agrees that it should be taught explicitly, for

different reasons, so by concluding this question, it is something that should be taught

whether implicitly or explicitly, understanding that this topic is important in the

development of the English learner, as something that will take students to have a different

way to express their ideas.

In conclusion, this questionnaire clearly reinforced the objectives of this

investigation, objectives that can be gathered and create just one, which would be:

Is passive voice really something difficult/confusing/tricky to learn as many people

suggest?

49
 According to the answers of the students, who have already learnt passive voice,

and the teachers who have answered the questionnaire, the answer would be no, it is not

something difficult to learn, but something good for the development and improvement of

the English learning process.

Final instrument: 2nd quiz

In this instrument, the final results of the exercises applied are going to be analysed

in order to confirm if the activities took effect and declare if this investigation was carried

out successfully.

The first part in this quiz were some questions were they were asked if they can now

understand some elements of the passive voice and the voice itself; the results are next:

1. Do you know what parts of speech are?

Do you know what parts of speech are?

31%

Yes
No

69%

50
 As we can see, a good percentage of the students can now identify and name things

by their name. Although it is not a hundred percent, this percentage represents more than

two-thirds of the group. This knowledge their acquired about the parts of speech is going to

be useful for other topics, too, so by learning the passive voice, it could be said that they

also learnt something that as we have mentioned before, some advanced students may

ignore.

2. Can you mention some of them?

Can you mention some of them?

23%
31%

Could
Partially could
couldn't

46%

In this second graphic, they were asked to write the name of the four elements (parts

of speech) they learnt in order to have an accurate verification of what they answered in the

previous question. We reinforce the idea about students calling their thing by their names,

although some of them could partially did it, they were good impressions since they could

mention 3 out of 4, and some could did it correctly. We can talk about an improvement

based on these results.

51
 3. Do you know what active voice is?

Do you know what active voice is?

31%

Yes
No
Some
0%
69%

On this question, and in order to prove that they now are aware of two different

ways to express and idea, we can see that they declared to know what active voice was,

responding that it was when we have a person at the beginning of the sentence, which

although is not a 100 percent accurate idea, they could distinguish it because of the

structure they know, talking about specifically of the order of verbs

Talking about the active voice, they were also capable of realise they always used

the active voice in the past to express their ideas, and when asked them what they did when

they wanted to highlight something (an object), they couldnt answer the question, they just

said that they have never thought of doing it. They are now happy to see what to do when

they want to highlight something different than the subject.

52
 4. Do you know what the passive voice is?

Do you know what the passive voice is?

31%

Yes
No
Some
0%
69%

This is a result that shows once again that two-thirds of the group can now express

themselves using something different to the passive voice. This is a quite good result in my

point of view, since as we mentioned at the beginning of the investigation, we had to keep

in mind a SMART criteria, which suggests that objectives need to be real and measurable,

among other things. Although it is true that there is a thirty one percent of students who

answered some to this question, there are no negative results out of this question, which

suggest that perhaps some students have not very clear what the passive voice is, but they

could at least distinguish it in an exercise where they must identify whether active or

passive.

Based on this answer, and even though we still have more questions to answer and

analyse, at this stage of the project I could say that they were able to learn passive voice

through some easy steps.

53
 5. Can you explain the differences between passive and active voice?

Can you explain the differences of them?

46% Could
Couldn't
54%

This was perhaps the most balanced results talking about the passive voice, although

I would say that the result of this question is perhaps a little bit subjective, but in order to

have this clear, I would like to clarify that it was due to their lack of vocabulary to explain

this on their own words. This was proven on the results of the exercises where they

demonstrated that it is possible for them to switch ideas from one voice to another, with a

percentage of sixty nine of the students doing it. On the other hand, people who could

explain this just wrote about the object as the main thing or the subject, which I think is

quite accurate regarding the basic ideas of those voices.

54
 6. Can you change ideas from one voice to another?

Can you change ideas from one voice to

another?

31%
Yes
No
Sometimes
0%
69%

Good results were given according to their opinions, but what the results gotten

from some exercises they were given indicate that they can clearly do it, considering that on

the part where they had to change not only from active to passive, but from passive to

active as well, 9 out of 13 students were able to complete this, so based on this numbers

and results, I can conclude that the results shown in this graphic are quite accurate and were

measured as well.

55
 7. Do you think passive voice was easy to learn? What were the difficulties

towards it?

Do you think passive What were the

voice was easy to difficulties you faced
learn? towards it?

23%
Yes
43% Structure
No
8% Verbs
Some 57%
69%

The last question was formed by two ideas, asking them if they found this voice

easy and asking them what were the difficulties they had faced towards this, and the results

were highly favourable.

Answering the first idea, once again we have the same sixty nine percent of many of

the previous questions, which suggest that it is just a third part of the group who faces

problems by the process of English learning. This graphic and results help us to declare that

passive voice can be something easy to learn, when following the right steps and starting

from a concrete base, which in my opinion, and as it could be reflected, learning some basic

parts of speech is a key element to succeed in this process. On the other hand, and as we

showed before on the results of the survey which was applied to the students of high

56
school, we can see that the main obstacles when learning this could be whether the past

participle of the verbs as well as the structure of this.

Now, and as the final step of this quiz, the global results of the exercises they did in

order to verify if they had learnt what passive voice is about, a graphic is going to be

display where I sort out some of the results by giving a grade them a grade from 1 to 10.

Results of the passive voice exercises

6

3 Results of the passive voice

exercises
2

0
Less than 5 From 5 to 6 From 7 to 8 From 9 to 10

Results show that the two-thirds of the students had a desirable acquisition of the

passive voice through all the steps mentioned before, and they can clearly express their

ideas as they want, not only by using the typical active voice, but using the passive voice as

well.

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 When summarising all these results and experience, I can say it was a quite

enjoyable project to develop, since the results are quite satisfying to look at and the whole

experience of preparing something, carry it out and getting some results out it was nice

considering that it was not such a big deal as many people think.

I am really happy with this project since I consider it something to eradicate all the

possible bad ideas about learning passive voice, and to show that doesnt matter how

difficult a topic may be considered; when you have the right ideas, you come up with the

best activities to develop, and one of the most important thing, when you are committed to

prove something you really want to, it becomes something you dont feel you are doing as a

project, as something mandatory but you feel you are doing something for the good of your

students learning process.

Results are there, they can be tell us many things, but the real important idea is to

raise awareness how good/beneficial/friendly English language can be, whether for

something you have to write, as well as something you want to express in an accurate and

comfortable way.

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 4.4 Results of methodology.

In this section, the results of the activities that I did are going to be analysed,

providing some explanations and pictures to have a clear idea of them. Before I start, the

activities I did are listed below:

1. Explanation of parts of speech

2. Playing jeopardy about parts of speech

3. Explanation, purpose and construction of the passive by using lists of nouns,

verbs, adjectives and pronouns.

1. Explanation of parts of speech

In order to start with the final and most important part of this project, where I am

going to try to teach the construction and appropriate use of passive voice, the first thing

that I decided to do was to start since the very basic concepts of English Grammar, or in

other words, learning about the parts of the speech.

The purpose of this is to make students aware about those components in sentences,

as well as their functions and some examples about them. The first thing that was told them

was that they were going to learn to call each thing by their correct name, since many times

students do not understand concepts and may get confused by identifying certain

components in a sentences; I told them that I did not want them to be in this situation,

situation that is very common even in advanced learners, all of this in order to motivate

them to improve their English level and gain some confidence, since they also were told

59
that they were going to be part of a project, where I was going to be taking some pictures

and evidences of their work, situation that caused a little anxiety in them.

As we start with the topic, I asked them what elements or components of a sentence

they knew, and some of them answered the subject, the verb and the complement,

something that I was already expecting. As I told them there were more than those, they felt

attracted to find out what those elements were. After this little warm up, I started to copy on

the board the information I had brought for them, where I wrote one concept and explained

the concept, and they help me through a brainstorm to complete the chart with more

examples of the concept I had just explained. They participated a lot and this contributed to

a nice environment in the classroom. I did the same with the other three concepts and based

on that, I can say that the comprehension of those concepts was successful.

The next thing I did that day, once they had understood what those four parts of

speech were, it was to explain the order these words follow in a common sentence. I

explained them in brief words what the syntax was, so they could have a clearer idea.

60
 Once they saw the structure, they felt quite familiar with the construction of

sentences as the ones the usually write. I gave them some examples so they could gain

some confidence before doing an activity I had prepared for them. I wrote a couple of

examples on the board so they could tell me the name of each part of speech I was pointing

out. They did it good and they didnt have any problems by telling me that Tadeo was a

noun and he was a pronoun, because it had been clarified that a noun can be a person, a

place or a thing, and that pronouns are the ones that are used to substitute a proper name.

At the end of these examples, they were ready to continue with the next activity.

The next activity that was carried out was to rewrite in order some words they were

given, according to the structure they were given previously and by identifying each part of

speech.

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 The first example was something easy so they did not lose that confidence they had

gained before, and the first activity meant no problem for the participant. After that, the

sentence was analysed by the whole group so everybody could understand this and continue

working in the same rhythm.

The next example was specially created with the purpose of writing a sentence in

the correct order; even though when they dont know what some words mean, doing it by

identifying what part of speech it was.

It was a little bit confusing since the participant didnt understand two of the three

prompts he had.

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 At this exercise, the participant couldnt write the sentence in order, arguing that he

did not understand some words, so the next step I took was to tell him that withdraws

was a verb and some funds was a noun, and by knowing this he just followed the

grammar and completed the sentence correctly.

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 Other examples were carried out and there was no problem, but I wrote again

another tricky example so they learn to use those abbreviations they have in their

dictionaries, where it specifies what part of speech it is.

In this example, the participant had the same problem as the previous one, where he

did not know the meaning of some words. She wrote the sentence but did it incorrectly, so

the rest of the students were asked to help her friend by looking up in the dictionary what

type of word it was, as well as the meaning so they could have a better idea about this

sentence. Given the parts of speech and their meaning, the participant could successfully

write the sentence.

64
 I highlighted the importance of using their dictionaries as the main tool to

understand words as well as identify the parts of speech. As the final activity, I gave them

some prompts for them to write examples, activity which was carried out with minor

problems.

65
 2. Playing jeopardy about parts of speech.

The second activity in order to accomplish our objective was to have an activity to

reinforce and have a good time by reviewing the parts of speech they have learnt on the

previous class. A game called jeopardy was chosen where they have to select among some

categories (Parts of speech in this case) and an amount of points, and then answer the

questions they are asked to earn the points and add them to the score. They were divided

into two teams (girls and boys) in order to make this more competitive. The team with the

most number of points wins. The class began with the explanation of the rules of the game,

as well as the turns we were going to follow, in order to make this in an orderly way. A

quick warm up was given were they had to remember which parts of speech we had learnt,

at the same time they had to give me some examples of each one of it.

66
 They were showed the board so they can know what I was talking about, and so we

started to play by proceeding alphabetically.

The game was carried out where some mistakes were committed but they were

cleared up so they could understand what they had done wrong.

67
 This game was somewhat easier than they had expected since they had options to

answer, but they also had time so they had to think fast. After playing the whole game, the

girls won and demonstrated they had understood better than men.

68
 3. Explanation, purpose and construction of the passive by using lists of nouns,

verbs, adjectives and pronouns.

The last and perhaps the most important part of this project carefully prepared in

order to succeed with my objective. This part dealt with the explanation of what the passive

voice is, as well as the purposes and the construction of this.

By this moment they were asked to remember the parts of speech they had learnt so

they can fully understand what this was about. I started by explaining them that in English

we have two types of voices, or two types of focus, whether active or passive.

The first thing I told them was that passive voice is used to highlight the object

instead of the subject. I continued by saying that they are used to write sentences starting

always with a person, as the last examples they had written on the board and in their

notebook as well. I explained them that this voice was completely the opposite to that

situation, because in passive voice the most important thing is the noun (or direct object)

69
 By this moment, I decided to give them some examples so they could notice what I

was talking about. I wrote an example in active voice, highlighting that examples like that

are the ones they have been writing. On the other hand, passive voice was written below the

active voice so they could analyse and understand it.

After the example of the pizza, I wrote another example about drinking a glass of

coke, where they had to tell me the passive voice of that idea. I reminded them of

remembering the elements that form a sentence, so they can identify them and rewrite them

with the new structure they were given. They did not have any problem by getting it.

We continued doing examples and as we moved forward on this topic, they seemed

to understand this better than expected, considering that perhaps it was time for them to

answer some exercises on their notebook.

The next activity they did was to change some sentences from active voice into

passive voice. Before they did that, I suggested two easy steps before doing the change.

70
 1. Identifying the D.O of the sentence in active voice

2. Write the D.O of the active sentence in the first place of the sentence of the

passive voice, and then continue with the structure they had previously learnt. Knowing

this, they were supposed to have no problem in their sentences. They were given 10

sentences as the first task to do.

*** The already know what D.O. (Direct Object) is, since the previous topic to this

one was tell and say***

71
 After some minutes, the first students finished and the results were positives.

There were some mistakes in other students were they did not conjugate the verb to

be correctly, and they were told to identify if the nouns were singular or plural. Another

mistake was that they did not take into account the adjective that accompanied the nouns. In

72
conclusion, I can say that the mistakes were minor and with some practice, those mistakes

will be improved.

In the second part of this final activity in order to understand completely the passive

voice, I prepared an activity where they were going to meet again with the parts of speech.

In this activity, they were asked to write lists of different parts of speech, each team

had two parts of speech they had to write and cut out in order to work with those clippings

and come up with some sentences.

What we did after having all the clipping and some tak (a kind of glue) ready to be

used, I asked the team with the nouns (names, places or thing) to paste one of their clipping

so the rest of the teams finished the idea with some of the clippings, too.

I asked them to find out if we were talking about a passive or active voice, by

identifying the first word in the sentence, whether a thing or a person, so they can complete

the idea correctly. After doing that, some ideas were pasted on the board.
73
 We continued doing this activity, completing active and passive voice sentences

according to the word the placed in the first position.

More sentences were written so they fully understand the process of converting

some active voice sentences into passive voice sentences. The final activity we did that day

was to change the sentences we had in active voice and passive voice into the opposite

voice, something that by the way was quite easy for them

74
75
76
Appendices

Initial Quiz (1st instrument)

1. Do you Enjoy English Class?

2. Do you feel comfortable writing sentences in English?

3. Are you Familiar with the components of a sentence?

4. Do you know what parts of speech are?

5. If so, can you mention them?

6. Are you familiar with verbs conjugation?

7. Do you know what active voice is?

8. Do you know what passive voice is?

77
2nd instrument (Survey among high school students)

What is your point of view about passive voice?

Do you think you can use now more passive voice when talking?

What were the obstacles you faced when learning passive voice?

Do you consider passive voice important? Why?

78
3rd instrument (questionnaire for teachers)

- Do you think passive voice is useful for students? Why?

- What do you think are the obstacles when learning the passive voice?

- Can passive voice replace the active voice as the daily language to be used?

- Should active voice be taught at school or should it be learnt implicitly?

79
2nd part of 1st instrument (final quiz)

1. Do you know what parts of speech are?

2. Can you mention some of them?

3. Do you know what active voice is?

4. Do you know what passive voice is?

5. Can you explain the difference of them?

6. Can you change ideas from one voice to another?

7. Do you think passive voice was easy to learn? What were the difficulties you faced

towards it?

80
Exercise

Transform from active to passive and from passive to active the next sentences.

1. I buy a new back pack

2. I prepare a delicious cake

3. My mom lost her keys

4. I wrapped my notebook

5. He saw a spider in the garden

6. My family plant trees

7. I played the flute

8. The shoes are worn

9. The wall was painted by the painter.

10. Some water is used by him

81
Quotes:

1) Dovey, D. (2015) Noam Chomskys Theory of Universal Grammar Is Right; It's Hardwired into

Our Brains, Retrieved September 11th, 2016 from http://www.medicaldaily.com/noam-

chomskys-theory-universal-grammar-right-its-hardwired-our-brains-364236 .

2) Fernandez, M.( N/Y ) Chomskys Universal grammar, third edition . P.2 Retrieved September

11th, 2016 from http://es.slideshare.net/marcelosobarzo/chomskys-universal-grammar-3rd-

edition-cook .

3) Wikihow, Reference part of speech, Retrieved October 5th , 2016 from

http://www.wikihow.com/Identify-Parts-of-Speech

4) I.S.U. Writing Centre, Reference part of speech, Retrieved October 7th from

http://www2.isu.edu/success/writing/handouts/parts-speech.pdf

5) Butte College, The eight parts of speech, Retrieved October 10th from

https://www.butte.edu/departments/cas/tipsheets/grammar/parts_of_speech.html

6) Biomedical Editor, The value of the passive voice, Retrieved October 12th, 2016 from

http://www.biomedicaleditor.com/passive-voice.html (p.14)

7) Dr. Godfred Anum, Research Instruments for data collection, Retrieved October 17th,

2016 from

http://campus.educadium.com/newmediart/file.php/1/giilmadstore/UgradResearch/ThesisW

rit4all/files/notes/resInstr.pdf .

82
8. Pennsylvania State University (2006) Using surveys for data collection in continuous

improvement Retrieved October 16th, 2016 from

http://www.opia.psu.edu/sites/default/files/insights014.pdf

9. Explorable, Statistical analysis, retrieved October 17th, 2016 from

https://explorable.com/statistical-analysis

10. R.F. Mackay (2013) Playing to learn: Panelists at Stanford discussion say using games

as an educational tool provides opportunities for deeper learning, retrieved October 17th,

2016 from: http://news.stanford.edu/2013/03/01/games-education-tool-030113/

83