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Lesson Plan August 9, 2024

Topic: The Passive

We use the passive voice to focus on the action or the receiver of the action rather than who is doing it.

Section A

Active: I mailed the letter on Monday.
Passive: The letter was mailed on Monday.

In the active sentence the subject (I) causes an action (mailed the letter).
In the passive sentence, the cause of the action is unknown unimportant - we only say what happens to the subject (the letter).

The passive is fired with the verb be + past participle

If we want to say who or what causes the action in a passive sentence, we use by:

• The letter was mailed by her father.

• He was hit by a motorcycle.

If the verb in a passive sentence has two objects, we can begin with the second object or use to:

• Active: The company gave me a new phone.

• Passive: I was given a new phone. / A new phone was given to me.

We sometimes use get instead of be:

• He nearly got run over by a car.

• My phone got stolen yesterday.

Get is used mainly in informal or spoken English to talk about things that happen or changed unexpectedly. We cannot say, for example “she gets liked by everyone”.

Short Dialogue

A: His car was sold yesterday.
B: Really? Who bought it?
A: I don’t know, but he got paid a lot of money for it.

Lesson Notes

Words & Phrases

• Shopping centres and libraries are shelters for a lot of people during hot summer days.

• The library wasn’t relaxing the other day.

Grammar

• What time did you water your plants? (This asks about a complete action in the past; the specific time you watered your plants)

• I watered my plants at nine in the morning.

• What time were you watering your plants? (This asks about an action that was ongoing at a certain time in the past; a period of time when you were in the middle of watering your plants)

• I was watering my plants at around nine in the morning.

Appropriacy

• This is the common way to describe regular closing and opening times. The active voice for openings and closing tends to be more natural and direct.

• "The store closes every day at 5pm.”

• “The shopping centre opens at 9am everyday.”

• In Canadian English, we generally follow the same conventions as British English for collective nouns

• "My family live in Germany, but I was educated in Switzerland."

• However the singular form (My family lives in Germany …) is also commonly used by speakers of English

The Passive

• His parents died when he was young, so he was brought up by his grandparents. (Bring up (phrase); to look after a child until its an adult)

• I’m afraid I can’t lend you my car. It’s (being / getting) repaired this week.

• If you don’t watch the grill, someone will get (burned / burnt).

In the following sentences the cause of the action is UNIMPORTANT or UNKNOWN, so they’ve been rewritten into passive voice.

• People grow corn in Iowa.

• Corn is grown in Iowa.

• Someone made this antique table in 1734.

• This antique table was made in 1734.

• Someone stole my purse.

• My purse was stolen.

• Someone was making coffee when I walked into the kitchen.

• Coffee was being made when I walked into the kitchen.

• Translators have translated that book into many languages.

• That book was translated into many languages.

• The judges will judge the artists on the basis of their creativity.

• The artists will be judged on the basis of their creativity.

• When did someone invent the computer?

• When was the computer invented?

• When is someone going to announce the results of the event?

• When are the results of the event going to be announced?