BusyTeacher’s CLAUDIA PESCE has published an article on teaching passive voice.
Students need to be as “active” as ever and fully engaged in their learning. But it is the teacher who must engage them. How do you get students actively engaged in learning something as tedious as the passive voice? With action, of course! By showing them that there is plenty of action involved, but that the focus is not on the actor, the one who is carrying out the action, but rather whoever or whatever is acted upon.
Here is one of the best ways to teach the passive voice:
Passive Voice: Active Approach
- 1Carry out an action!Stand in front of your class. Drop a pen on the floor. Ask your students to tell you what has just happened and ask them to begin the sentence with your name. Someone should be able to say: “Ms. Rodriguez dropped a pen on the floor.” Write this sentence on the board. Ask students to identify the subject and the verb in this sentence; they should say the subject is “Ms. Rodriguez” and that the verb is “dropped”.