• Passive tense, also known as passive voice, can be a difficult concept for English as a Second Language (ESL) students to grasp. Before beginning any passive tense exercise, be sure students have at least a basic understanding of subjects and objects, as they play an important role in this tense. Students should also be comfortable with writing and reading sentences in active tense or voice before moving on to passive tense.
  
  

Passive-Tense Role Play

• Role play is an effective way to help students grasp concepts. For passive-tense role play, have each student choose an object like a book, paper, pen or pencil. Write an active sentence on the board describing a student and his object. For example, "Mark is reading a book." Have students identify the subject (Mark) and the object (the book). Tell them to rewrite the sentence with the object first. What is happening to the object? It is being read. They should write, "The book is being read by Mark"--a passive sentence.
  
  Students should see that what is happening has not changed, but their focus was on Mark in the first sentence, and on the book in the second. Move around the room, letting students perform actions on their objects while the rest of the class describes them in both active and passive voice.
  
  

Who Did It?

• For this activity, choose one object like a book or pencil. Have the class close their eyes, then select one student to hide the object in her desk or bag. Ask the class to open their eyes, and ask "what happened to the book?" They can respond with many verbs, so long as the sentence is passive (that is, "The book was stolen" or "The book was hidden"). Emphasize that the subject--in this case, the student--is missing. The student can then take out the book, prompting an active sentence such as "Jenny hid the book."
  
  

Active-Passive Circle

• Have the students arrange their desks in a circle. Instruct each student to write an active sentence of their choosing in their notebooks. Choose one student to read his active sentence aloud ("I rode a horse"). The student next to him must repeat his sentence in passive tense ("The horse was ridden by him") before she can read aloud her own active sentence. Continue around the circle until everyone has changed one active sentence to passive.