Lessons learnt from crashing a bus

Once upon a time, there was a young substitute English teacher whose students only used?have been?and?has been?for passive voice.?As it turned out, their textbook only gave examples in the present perfect. No wonder they'd turn a simple?Mike?does?the dishes?into?The dishes *have been?done.?

I was that teacher, and that bizarre?have been?situation probably triggered what was to become GrammarBob/Leon's grammarCORE because it forced me to think about making English grammar easy.

The textbook explanation of passive voice was technically correct, but my students were confused. They tried following the book's instructions on turning the direct object into the subject while using a form of to be and a past participle. But even if they got that right, they didn't get the underlying idea.

So I used a toy doubledecker bus and a piece of wood to illustrate the sentence?the bus hits a rock. The toy bus visibly and dramatically crashing into that mock rock made the situation come alive. The otherwise dull sentence and abstract grammar changed into a movie scene, exciting and memorable, featuring an active out-of-control bus and a passive rock.?

My students could now imagine themselves as movie directors with two cameras for filming the crash. One camera to capture the crazy bus in action. Another camera to focus on the victim of all that reckless driving.?

As directors on a movie set, my students had no trouble understanding the underlying idea. They could switch their perspective from camera one to camera two, from the active bus to the passive rock.?

Next, seeing how a?now-bus would miss a?yesterday-rock, they quickly got the idea of sticking to a single setting. For the active bus to crash into the passive rock, both had to be in the?same place?at the?same time.?

So for cameras one and two to show the two sides of the?same action, active and passive must always take the?same tense. A coin comes in handy for pressing home that basic idea.

Turning a coin from heads to tails does not change its value. A euro is a euro no matter which side is up. A half-dollar doesn't turn into 10 cents if you flip it. Just like the value of a coin, the verb tense doesn't change when you switch between cameras one and two, between active and passive. The setting always stays the same!?

This way of explaining passive is more than just a neat trick. The visual example does what no abstract rule can do: it turns grammar into reality, showing how language works when describing an action. Creating such a mental image in your students' minds is what helps them understand.

My students were relieved that it was no rocket science. The bus, rock and coin have been part of my teacher toolkit ever since.

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My continuing?mission: to boldly go where no grammar has gone before and make essential English grammar easy for all.