1. THE PASSIVE FORM
Use with ‘transitive’ verbs:
Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa
The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci

2. passives
• Farmers grow a mix of 2 or 3 types of cacao
• -> 2 or 3 types of cacao is grown
• CLIL will change your life
• -> Your life will be changed by CLIL

3. Meaning & Use
• To say something in another way (the tense
keeps its basic meaning and use)
• To show we are interested in the action but
not so interested in who does/did it. Those
pyramids were built around 400AD.
• To put the news at the end – we prefer to
start a sentence with something that is
already known. A bank was robbed today…
• To keep the same subject and maintain
focus on the topic

4. Passive Forms
• Will be + pp • ?
• Will have been + pp • ?
• Am/are/is + pp • ? Name the
• Am/are/is being + pp • ? tenses
• Have/has been +pp • ?
• Was/were + pp • ?
• Was/were being + pp • ?
• Had been + pp • ?

5. Passive Forms
• Will be + pp • Future simple
• Will have been + pp • Future perfect
• Am/are/is + pp • Simple present
• Am/are/is being + pp • Present progressive
• Have/has been +pp • Present perfect
• Was/were + pp • Simple past
• Was/were being + pp • Past progressive
• Had been + pp • Past perfect

6. Pronunciation
• Auxiliary verbs are always pronounced as
‘weak forms’
• The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da
Vinci
• Cacao trees have frail trunks so they would
easily be damaged if pod pickers tried to climb
them

7. Appropriacy
The passive is prefered when we are :
• Writing academic or scientific documents –
passives without ‘agents’ are common in this
type of document
• When we want to keep the same subject to
maintain the flow
• To make your writing more formal and
‘distant’ from the person reading it

8. MFPA
Always focus on MFPA
when
researching and teaching language