Building Cars Live - a good resource for teaching the passive voice

Watching the BBC’s Building Cars Live this week I felt I should post my thoughts on using this as a resource in Year 6 to teach/consolidate learning of the passive voice.  I’ve linked a few clips and some of the transcribed sentences I would use to exemplify the passive.  There are only a couple of examples in each clip and this is important for children to note.  The passive should not be overused and is only necessary in certain situations:

• We don’t know who the agent is: The artworks were stolen overnight on Friday. (We don't know who stole them.)
• The agent is not important in the text: The cars are transported to destinations in Britain and around the world. (We are not interested in who transports them.)
• You want to be vague about who is responsible: Responses to the Consultation Document have been considered and amendments made. (We are not informed who is responsible for the consideration and amendment.  This use of the passive often appears in official writing!)
• The focus of the sentence is the person or thing being acted on, so the agent may not be mentioned or will appear later in the sentence: Mini Coopers are manufactured at the Oxford plant.  Mini Cooper frames are constructed by robots.
• Texts that rely on the passive voice, e.g. some scientific writing: The seeds were planted in the pots and left in different places to germinate.  Observations were made each day to monitor growth.
• In some general truths: Rules are made to be broken.  They were made for each other.

Duvet wearing robots that can open car doors

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p035f11v

This clip contains the following sentences, which I would unpick for children as examples of how the passive is formed: a form of the verb ‘be’ as the auxiliary, followed by the past participle of the main verb.  Both uses are present simple passive.

• The jackets are used to keep the robots at an ambient temperature …
• All this data is carefully collected.

James May meets a singing trolley called Dougal

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p035dwsq

• Toyoto are obsessed with their quest for continuous improvement.  (This sentence highlights that in some passive constructions we use ‘with’ instead of ‘by’.)
• That’s steered by a wiper motor from an Avensis.   (Children will be able to see that we can use contracted forms of ‘be’ as the auxiliary for the passive construction.)

Meet the factory

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p035cv4x

• The following example show the first use of the passive voice constructed with the auxiliary but, because we have another passive used in the same sentence, the auxiliary is omitted to make the structure more efficient: Steel panels are pressed in Swindon; engines manufactured in Birmingham …
• This example repeats this structure, but with a list of passives: Once built the cars are driven for the first time, tested, inspected, wrapped and sent out into the world.

How to build a car in less than 2 minutes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p035dk01

This clip shows the car’s construction ‘journey’ through the factory, without commentary.  This could be used for children to produce examples of sentences using the passive voice (e.g. The car frame is welded by robots.  The car is dusted in the Emu, using ostrich feathers.  Cars are parked in the huge car park.)  Before they view this clip, they will need to have seen and discussed a number of the other clips from the programme so they understand the speeded-up content.  They will need to see this clip a few times to recognise the procedures and I suggest you model writing one or two passive structures first.

As a group or class, collect their sentences in sequential order to explain the processes in constructing a car.   Trying to structure an explanatory text using the sentences from the above activity, will highlight that overuse of the passive doesn’t work well.  Re-writing using a few, well-placed passives (chosen for correct reasons) and a range of other verb forms will help children understand that variation of verb forms and tenses is required in this type of text, but will also provide opportunity for developing:

• appropriate style and vocabulary to maintain the reader’s interest throughout.
• make choices in drafting and revising writing, showing understanding of how these enhance meaning.
• proof read for grammatical sense (e.g. subject/verb agreements, correct tense use).

I’m sure teachers will be able to find more examples in some of the other clips on the BBC website.  Actually the language used during filming contains many examples of other verb tenses or forms appropriate to non-fiction writing, so could be a useful resource for revision.

The passive voice - using different verb tenses and forms

A colleague asked me the other day about using the passive in different verb tenses and forms and what these would look like.  Most teachers are fairly confident in using the simple present and simple past passive forms, but it is important to know what the other forms look like, especially when identifying good examples in authentic texts to use in class.   

As the passive is included in the statutory appendix of the 2014 National Curriculum and is required teaching for year 6 pupils, I thought it might be useful to post some key subject knowledge about the active and passive voices and detail the most common passive tenses and forms, with examples.

Most of the sentences we write are in the active voice.  In this structure, the subject of the sentence is the person or thing which is doing the action and the object of the sentence is what is being affected by the action.  For example:

The dog      chased       the cat.

subject               verb               object

doing the      (active form)       affected by

action                                       the action

The passive voice is formed by using a form of the verb ‘be’ and the past participle of the main verb.  In the passive, the person or thing being affected by the action becomes the subject of the sentence; the person or thing doing the action may or may not be provided.  For example:

The cat        was chased.

subject          verb (past passive form)

affected

by action

The cat        was chased          by the dog

subject                     verb                       preposition + the agent

affected         (past passive form)         doing the action

by action

Below are examples of different tenses and verb forms in the passive, using the main verb ‘fly’.  The list isn’t exhaustive, but provides the most common variations and a few less usual ones.

She is flown.                                             Simple present passive

She was flown.                                          Simple past passive

She is being flown.                                     Present continuous passive

She was being flown.                                 Past continuous passive

She has been flown.                                  Present perfect passive

She had been flown.                                  Past perfect passive

She will be flown.                                      Simple future passive

She is going to be flown.                           Simple future passive (is going to)

She will be being flown.                             Future continuous passive

She is going to be being flown.                   Future continuous passive (although I find this an ugly structure)

She has been being flown.                         Present perfect continuous passive

She had been being flown.                         Past perfect continuous passive

She will have been flown.                           Future perfect passive

She is going to have been flown.                 Future perfect passive

She could have been flown.                       Conditional present perfect passive

She would have been being flown.              Conditional present perfect continuous passive

It will be important for children to understand that we use the passive to create more formality in writing and that it is often used to distance the writer from the content being presented.  In some cases this enables the writer to ‘hide’ responsibility.  For example, the omission of the agent in the sentence below would hide who to blame or to thank, depending on your point of view and occupation.  (Although for many teachers I know, this would be a shorter working day!)

‘It has been decided to extend the school day to 9.00 pm.’

Of course, when writing, we may not know who the agent is and cannot include this information in our sentence.  For example, in journalistic writing, the perpetrator of a crime may not be known: The statue was damaged last night, at around ten.

Prepositional phrases

Prepositional phrases are usually formed by a preposition, followed by a noun or noun phrase.  Although they often indicate place or direction, they can also indicate, amongst other things, time, the manner in which an action is performed, to express 'having' or attributes, purpose and as agent after the passive.

Time: on the 5th May, at midnight, within a few days, since, for 3 days.
Manner: by car, with kindness, like a mad dog.
Attributes: with the red hair, without shame, of intelligence.
Purpose: because of the floods, as a result of the sun, from tiredness,for a reason, out of kindness.
Agent: by the burglar, with a baseball bat.

Prepositional phrases which express 'having'/attributes are often used to modify nouns.  They occur after the main noun, so 'post-modify' it, but are still part of the noun phrase.

The boy in the bright yellow jumper...      waved excitedly.


 Although 'boy' is the main noun being talked about, the information contained in the prepositional phrase post-modifies the noun and the whole phrase could be replaced with the pronoun 'He'.  It is useful to know this when assessing children's writing: if 'The boy' was considered as the noun phrase, there isn't much expansion, but 'The boy in the bright yellow jumper' shows a lot more noun phrase expansion.

Prepositional phrases can also be used to complement adjectives or adjectival phrases:

• The politician was sorry for his comments.
• The girl was delighted with her shiny, new bike. 

A phrase using the preposition 'than' can also qualify adjectives and enable a comparison, for example, 'The hare was quicker than the tortoise.'