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Year 6 - English

Using the active and passive voice

Three tense forms, modality, active voice and passive voice

Unit Summary

In this unit, pupils review the simple, progressive and perfect present tenses as well as modal verbs for use in persuasive writing and speech sentences. They learn the rules for the perfect past and future tenses for the first time as well as learning about the active and passive voice.

Lesson Summary

You will learn to convert sentences between the active and passive voice.

Key Notes

  • There are different tenses and ways of forming verbs in English.
  • In the passive voice, the verb is 'done to' the subject.
  • The passive voice allows the speaker or writer to sound more detached from the sentence content than the active voice.
  • The active voice is the most frequently heard, spoken and written voice in English.
  • A clause in the passive voice contains two verbs: an auxiliary verb from the infinitive 'to be' and the past participle.

Vocabulary To Learn

  • subject: the noun, noun phrase or pronoun that does or is the main verb in the active voice
  • object: the noun, noun phrase or pronoun that receives the action of the main verb in the active voice
  • verb: a being, a doing or a having word
  • active voice: a spoken or written voice in which the subject does the verb in a sentence
  • passive voice: a spoken or written voice in which the subject is acted upon by the verb

Common Mistakes To Avoid

  • Pupils may struggle to maintain the correct tense when converting between active and passive.

3 Quick Questions (With Answers)

1. Explain this English learning goal in two key points.

There are different tenses and ways of forming verbs in English. In the passive voice, the verb is 'done to' the subject.

2. Define this language term and use it in a sentence. 'subject'

the noun, noun phrase or pronoun that does or is the main verb in the active voice.

3. Correct this common English misunderstanding.

Mistake: Pupils may struggle to maintain the correct tense when converting between active and passive. Correction: Encourage pupils to consider the different tense options and find the one that sounds best.

More Lessons In This Unit

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