Students will learn about passive voice to show how products are made

Dear students the present guide has the pedagogical intention, to know about some traditional products in our country. Do you know some of them?

Look at the traditional Colombian products in the pictures. Imagine that you are describing them to someone who doesn’t know what they are. Use the words in the box to help you.

backpack – hammock – shoes – pot – vase – hat – blouse – cotton – wool – clay – traditional – colourful

Passive voice

Functions of the passive voice

The passive voice is used to show interest in the person or object that experiences an action rather than the person or object that performs the action. In other words, the most important thing or person becomes the subject of the sentence.

Examples

The passive voice is used frequently. (= we are interested in the passive voice, not in who uses it.)

The house was built in 1654. (= we are interested in the house, not in who built it.)

The road is being repaired. (= we are interested in the road, not in the people who are doing the repairs.)

Sometimes we use the passive voice because we don't know or do not want to express who performed the action.

Examples

I noticed that a window had been left open.

Every year thousands of people are killed on our roads.

All the cookies have been eaten.

My car has been stolen!

The passive voice is often used in formal texts. Switching to the active voice will make your writing clearer and easier to read.

Passive	Active
A great deal of meaning is conveyed by a few well-chosen words.	A few well-chosen words convey a great deal of meaning.
Our planet is wrapped in a mass of gases.	A mass of gases wrap around our planet.
Waste materials are disposed of in a variety of ways.	The city disposes of waste materials in a variety of ways.

If we want to say who or what performs the action while using the passive voice, we use the preposition by. When we know who performed the action and are interested in him, it is always better to switch to the active voice instead.

Passive	Active
"A Hard Day's Night" was written by the Beatles.	The Beatles wrote "A Hard Day's Night".
The movie ET was directed by Spielberg.	Spielberg directed the movie ET.
This house was built by my father.	My father built this house.

Read more about the passive voice and active equivalents for all English verb tenses.

Forming the passive voice

The passive voice in English is composed of two elements:
the appropriate form of the verb 'to be' + past participle

Affirmative	Negative	Interrogative	Negative Interrogative
The house was built in 1899.	The house wasn't built in 1899.	Was the house built in 1899?	Wasn't the house built in 1899?
These houses were built in 1899.	These houses weren't built in 1899.	Were these houses built in 1899?	Weren't these houses built in 1899?

1. Read descriptions of the products in exercise.Which products are they?Match with the information from the box below

1. These colourful bags are made by the native people of La Guajira. They are made of cotton and produced in approximately 20 days.

2. This is a typical Colombian hat. It is a symbol of Colombia. This hat is made in Córdoba and Sucre. The Zenú people created the design of the hat. It is made from a tree called Caña Flecha.

3. These bags are a popular Colombian handicraft. They are made of wool and cotton. The bags are

manufactured in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in La Guajira by the Arhuacos people. Indigenous drawings, representations of animals and other objects from their cultures are depicted on them.

4. These clay pots are made in La Chamba in Tolima. Each one takes more than one month to make.

5. Baskets, dishes and shoes are traditional handicrafts made of straw and fique – a natural product from the

fique plant – by artisans from Boyacá. These days, Colombians and foreign tourists buy them.

6. In San Jacinto, Bolívar, we can find these colourful hammocks, which are made by hand, and take 2 to 3 weeks to create.

7. These bowls and vases are produced by the Waunana people in Chocó. They are made from Werregue palm fibres. Nowadays, they are mostly sold in markets.

8. These blouses, called ‘molas’, are part of the traditional clothes of the Kuna Indians who live in Antioquia.

They are decorated with designs of shapes and figures.

Backpack -hat-blouses – vases-hammock – shoes – pots - Backpack

2. Look at the verbs in the box for manufacturing a product. Then match them to the expressions. For some expressions, you can match more than one verb.

sell – pick – grow – pack – buy – knit – cut – send – produce – sew

a. clothes in a market (2 verbs)

b. thousands of items each year

c. clothes by hand (2 items)

d. fruit from trees

f. the material into small pieces

g. in boxes

h. to stores in trucks

3. Unscramble the sentences about making and selling baskets.

a.bamboo / into / thin / is / picked / and / pieces / cut

b. baskets / the / artisans / pieces / made / into / by / are

c. sold / baskets / shops / are / in / the

d. the / are / by / baskets / used / customers

4. Read carefully and summarize the text.

The life story of jeans

A pair of jeans passes through a long process before it arrives at a clothes store. Let’s have a look.

1 Jeans are made of denim, which starts life as cotton. Cotton is mostly grown in warm countries. The cotton plant takes approximately 2 to 6 weeks to produce cotton fibre. When it is ready, the cotton is picked from the fields.

2 The cotton is processed to make thread. First, this thread is coloured blue (or sometimes black, white or other colours) using dye. It is then inserted into a machine and turned into denim.

3 After that, the denim is cut into pieces using patterns in order to create the shape of jeans. These pieces are sewn together on machines to get a perfect pair of jeans. Next, the extra sections are added: buttons, pockets, zips and labels are sewn on, and the jeans are finished!

4 Finally, the jeans are organised into different styles, colours and sizes, and are sent to the stores in trucks. They are often sold at high prices, because they are the world’s most popular trousers.

5. Write passive sentences using the words below. When you finish, check in the text and correct

your sentences if necessary.

Example: The cotton is grown in fields.

a. cotton / grow / warm countries

b. cotton / pick / from the fields

c. cotton / process / to make thread

d. thread / colour / blue

e. denim / cut / pieces

f. pieces / sew / together / machines

g. jeans / organise / different styles, colours, sizes

h. they / often / sell / high prices

AND SELF EVALUATION

• 1.What I have learned?

• 2.What was easy from the lesson?

• 3.What was difficult?

Foro