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G R A M M A R

Holistic
grammar
teaching 3
Rod Bolitho views the What do our learners need to know
about voice? Why do so many
explore this area in greater depth and to
get learners thinking about it instead of
importance of voice. coursebooks and teachers make such a responding mechanistically.
big issue of the passive as a structure?
Are we making it more difficult for 
learners than it really is?
Each of these activities is designed to
here is nothing structurally push learners far beyond the immediate

T difficult about the passive voice


in English. Once learners have
a command of the parts of the
verb to be and the form of the past
participle (V3), they have the means at
comfort zone of formulaic transformation
exercises and simple rules of usage. They
are designed to be mulled over and
discussed in pairs or groups in order to
help the learners to work towards a ‘feel’
their disposal to construct passive for how English speakers make decisions
forms. And yet, for decades, structural about active and passive use. To do this,
syllabuses insisted dogmatically on they need to work on whole texts like
providing for teaching the passive tense those in Activities 1 and 2, where the
by tense, and for practising it by asking writer has made considered choices, but
learners to transform active sentences they will also benefit from becoming
into the passive. Recent coursebooks aware of how ‘activeness’ and
have begun to focus much more on the ‘passiveness’ underlie aspects of the lexical
uses of the passive in English, and this system, as in the third activity. All this
is an important step forward as some implies thinking and talking about
languages use the passive less than English, and if this means that some of
English does, making use of other the discussion takes place in the mother
options such as impersonal constructions tongue, that should not be a problem. It
(German man and French on, for is the quality of the thinking and talk
example, and third person plural or a that counts in cases like this.
reflexive, as in Russian). However, very Rod Bolitho is Academic
few coursebooks explore reasons for the Director at Norwich
Institute for Language
choices of voice that writers and speakers Education, UK.
make as a text unfolds and, still less, the Previously, he spent 17
years at the University
wider notions of ‘activeness’ and College of St Mark and
‘passiveness’, which have their St John in Plymouth. His
most recent book is
equivalents in all languages. Here on Trainer Development,
pages 13 and 14 is a straightforward co-authored with Tony
Wright.
sequence of activities (plus keys) at
rodbol44@yahoo.co.uk
upper-intermediate level designed to

12 • Issue 75 July 2011 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •


Activity 1
Look at the following text and answer the questions alongside it.

What happens when you 1 Why does the writer address the reader
press the ‘Start’ button on a photocopier? directly here?
Inside a copier there is a special drum. The drum acts a lot like a balloon – it
can be charged with a form of static electricity. 2 Why does the writer choose the
Inside the copier there is also a very fine black powder known as toner. The passive in these two cases?
drum, once it is charged with static electricity, can attract the toner particles.
3 Who made it? Is it important to know?
The drum, or belt, is made out of photoconductive material.

Here are the actual steps involved in making a photocopy: 4 Why ‘becomes charged’ and not just
‘is charged’ here?
1 The surface of the drum becomes charged.
2 An intense beam of light moves across the paper that you have placed 5 Why the active voice again here?
on the copier’s glass surface. Light is reflected from white areas of the
paper and strikes the drum below. 6 Look at the three verbs in this
3 Wherever a photon hits, electrons are emitted from the photoconductive sentence. Why does the writer switch
from active to passive and then back?
atoms in the drum and they neutralise the positive charges above. Dark
areas on the original (such as pictures or text) do not reflect light onto
7 Do these adjectives imply that the
the drum, leaving regions of positive charges on the drum’s surface.
toner and the paper are charged
4 The negatively charged, dry, black pigment called toner is then spread during or before the process? Can you
over the surface of the drum, and the pigment particles adhere to the see the ‘hidden passive’ in them?
positive charges that remain.
5 A positively charged sheet of paper then passes over the surface 8 Can you see why this is sometimes
of the drum, attracting the beads of toner away from it. called a ‘telescoped passive’? Can you
find two more examples in the text?
6 The paper is then heated and pressed to fuse the image formed
by the toner to the paper’s surface. 9 Why is the passive used so often in
this kind of text?
And your photocopy is ready – all in a few seconds!

Activity 2
Look at this short newspaper extract and answer the questions alongside it.

1 Why is the passive used in the 7 ‘... are believed to have been
Tiger murdered in Arunachal Pradesh headline and in the first sentence killed ...’ Is this vague or
On January 7, a tiger was poisoned and bled to death of the report? precise? Why does the
journalist choose a passive
by inhabitants of Namuk, a village 30 km from 2 What does the first sentence tell
construction here? Would a
Siang district in Arunachal Pradesh. On January 8, us that is not in the headline?
writer in your language use
the tiger was brought to the village, where an 3 Who brought the tiger to the the passive here?
environmental activist caught it on camera before its village on January 8? Who
coat was removed and presumably sold. removed its coat and sold it? 8 ‘... never even get reported.’
There is rumoured to be a flourishing trade in Why doesn’t the journalist name Why not just ‘... are never
tiger skins and other body parts in the area, but these people? reported’? What does ‘get’
villagers refused to confirm this. They claim that the add here?
4 Why does the journalist start the
tiger was killed to protect their farm animals from second paragraph with a passive 9 Who do you think the journalist
attack. The local police superintendent promised a construction: ‘There is rumoured actually spoke to at first hand,
full investigation into this illegal activity, saying ‘If to be ...’? Would a writer in your and which parts of his report
smugglers are involved, they will be severely language use the passive here? seem to be based on hearsay?
punished under the Forest Act.’ How can you identify this
5 Why the switch to the active difference?
Over 200 tigers are believed to have been killed in
voice with ‘They claim ...’ at the
India in the last twelve months. Activists are trying 10 Why do you think journalists
start of the next sentence?
to help local people to understand that this rate of find the passive so useful?
slaughter cannot be maintained if the tiger is to 6 Who will punish the smugglers
survive. Far too many cases never even get reported. (second paragraph)? Do we need
to know?

• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 75 July 2011 • 13


Holistic grammar teaching 3
Activity 3
Which of the nouns and adjectives in
the list opposite have a ‘passive a) loot b) drinkable c) trainer d) employee
flavour’ about them? Try to use a
passive construction to define each e) incredible f) manager g) patient h) unrepeatable
of them and an active construction
to define the others. When you have i) travel agent j) addressee k) soluble l) trainee
finished, think about words like these
in your own language, and how they m) payee n) manageable o) victim p) tolerable
are expressed and defined. Do you
notice any differences? (It may be best to do a couple of examples with the whole class to get them started.)

Key to activities
Please note that in many of these cases there may be no absolutely right answer. The process of thinking and discussion
that learners go through is far more important than the final answers they come up with.

Activity 1 writing as it is not an option in many point, and so covers himself by using
1 To attract the reader’s interest. To other languages. This is why it is good to the passive ‘are believed to have been
provide an informal and personal way take every opportunity to raise their killed ...’.
into the description of a technical awareness of it in texts like this.) 8 A difficult one to answer, but the
process. 9 Because it is a description of a use of ‘get’ seems to make the passive
2 Probably because the ‘agent’, or process in which the doer of an action, more ‘dynamic’ here, almost as if he is
doer of the action, simply isn’t important or agent, is usually irrelevant to accusing his fellow journalists of
here. understanding. ignoring an important issue on the
grounds that killing tigers has become
3 We don’t know and it’s not important
Activity 2 so common as to be uninteresting.
to know.
1 To keep the focus on the main 9 He seems to have spoken to some
4 It emphasises a change of state ‘character’ in the story, in this case the villagers and to the police, and has used
(very common in scientific and technical tiger. the active voice to report what they said,
contexts). even quoting the police superintendent’s
2 More detail on the way the tiger died
5 To re-engage the readers and to and who was responsible. exact words. Much of the rest of the
remind them that this is something they report seems to be based on second-
3 We don’t know and the journalist
do regularly. hand information and, here, he uses the
doesn’t name those responsible, for any passive to protect himself and to
6 The choice here seems to be mainly of the following reasons: a) he doesn’t indicate a greater degree of uncertainty.
stylistic; it allows a ready sequencing of actually know exactly who did these
three interconnected phases in the 10 For many of the reasons stated
things; b) he believes the names to be
process, with the electrons as the subject unimportant and irrelevant to the story; above. It can be used to protect
of the second and third main verbs and c) he knows, but he is protecting himself sources, to protect the writer or to focus
therefore the main focus for a reader. from legal action or revenge by not on the main character or incident in the
7 They were charged before this revealing the names. story, especially where the doer of an
action is unknown or not relevant.
stage. You can spot the ‘hidden’ or 4 Possibly because he doesn’t know,
underlying passive if you extend the or wants to protect, the source of these
noun phrase into a clause in each case:
Activity 3
rumours.
‘The toner which has been negatively Some examples will suffice here:
5 Possibly because he is reporting
charged ...’ and ‘The sheet of paper ● A trainee is someone who is being
exactly what the villagers said to him. He
which has been positively charged ...’. trained.
seems to be sure of his ground here.
8 Sometimes also called a ‘telescoped ● If a substance is soluble, it can be
6 There is no need to include an agent
relative’, it can be readily expanded to dissolved.
here – there is an assumption that every
‘the image which has been formed by the
reader will be familiar with the way the ● A victim is someone who has been
toner’. The other examples are: ‘a very
law works. attacked, hurt or killed.
fine black powder known as toner’ and
‘the actual steps involved’. 7 It is deliberately imprecise. The ● A travel agent arranges journeys and
(Note: Learners often find it difficult to writer doesn’t have access to exact holidays.
build this ‘telescoping’ into their own statistics but still wants to make the

14 • Issue 75 July 2011 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •

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