HANDOUT: PASSIVE VOICE

Target of Learning : Speaking, Grammar

Language Feature:

Passive Voice Form

subject + (verb have - perfect tenses) / (modal) verb be + past participle
The package was delivered.
My suit is being cleaned.
They have been told.
You will be met.

The passive voice with different tenses

The passive voice is made with the auxiliary verb to be and the past participle. The auxiliary verb
shows the tense.

The rubbish is collected every day. (present simple)

My suit is being cleaned. (present continuous)
He was invited to the party. (past simple)
The building was being renovated. (past continuous)
Two men have been arrested. (present perfect)
She had been interviewed earlier in the day. (past perfect)
Your request will be dealt with shortly. (will future)
Cars must not be parked here. (modal present)
It must have been stolen. (modal perfect)

*Note: perfect continuous tenses do not have a passive form.

Activity 1

Passive Dominoes : Bank Robbery

Function :

 Used as ice-breaking for setting the students to be ready with the PASSIVE VOICE
  Dominoes game can stimulate students understanding about some materials. Here this
dominoes game is used by students to analyze the difference between ACTIVE and
PASSIVE VOICE.

 Students practice directly the use of ACTIVE and PASSIVE VOICE by using the case
faced in daily life.

 Create fun learning which aims at students’ understanding on ACTIVE and PASSIVE
VOICE.

Rule :Turn-taking Strategy

Teacher:

1. Prepare the class

2. Make groups of two

3. Cut the dominoes paper

4. Analyze students’ sentence production on PASSIVE VOCIE by going around the class
S+ be+ V3+O
5. Give the encouragement on the PASSIVE pattern :

6. Students are grouped into groups of 2

Students :

1. Students are given a pile of cards of passive and active sentences

2. With his partner, in turn, students practice to use the PASSIVE VOICE in fun learning.

3. Students, in turn, take the cards from the pile and make the passive voice sentence by
matching the sentences.

4. Student who gets the most cards is the winner

been treated for shock. A security guard was shot in the legs. The police arrived

some documents and a

within minutes of the
The car contained small bag of bank A large area of Central
robbers leaving.
notes.

was sealed off. Over a million dollars were stolen in the raid. A car was later

found abandoned in a It is believed the A description of the

have escaped to Macau.
side street. robbers men has

been released to the released a description

Police have Two or the men were
press. of the men.

later seen running from questioned at Wan Chai

A man is being The guard was
the bank. police station.
taken to the Queen Members of the public to keep away from the
Doctors have said
Mary Hospital. were told crime scene.

the guard is in a stable taken into a back room Staff and customers
Customers were
condition. and tied up. have
Activity 2

Grammar

You are going to complete a news report about a shooting.

1. Find the past participles of the main verbs from list 1 below
2. Match each of these main verbs with a gap in the text.
3. Find the correct auxiliary verbs from list 2 and add them to the main verbs. 4 Insert the two
adverbs (ending in ‘ly’) into the right places in the story