Guessing Game in the Passive Voice
This is a simple activity to help students practice the passive voice in the present simple tense.
You should use it once you have gone through the basics of the passive voice and your students are familiar with the rules of formation for the passive present simple tense.
The activity can be used with any student level or age gorup.
It can easily be done with very little equipment.
If you have a stand alone blackboard use the back side to write on it several items that can be easily described by shape, size, and material.
Alternatively prepare a set of flashcards with one item printed on each card. You can do this by hand or use your computer to create the cards.
If you have a large class, make the size of the cards fairly big so that they can be seen even by the students in the back row.
How to Play
Mix the cards in front of your class as if you were an experienced card dealer.
Hold five cards in your hand and invite a student to pick a card.
N.B. If you are using the back of the blackboard simply have a student come to the board and silently choose one of the objects listed at the back.
Instruct the student not to show the card to anyone and allow them a few seconds to think up a brief description of the item they can see on the card. The student will only be allowed to give a couple of clues to get the game started.
Based on the initial clues the rest of the class will have to guess what it is printed on the card the student is holding.
They can only ask questions that use the passive voice in the present simple, like:
- What is it used for?
- What is it made of?
- Where is it found?
- Where is it bought?
- Who is it used by?
The same applies to the student holding the card. They can only answer by using the passive voice in the present simple.
So if the item on the card was a fridge you could envisage the following exchange going on:
Clues:Variations on the Theme
You can vary the level of difficulty of this activity by choosing items that require a more or less detailed description to be identified. A fridge is an easy guess whilst a mouse mat may not be the first thing that comes to mind!
To make the activity easier select items that can be grouped under the same category like household items, garden tools, food, etc.
You can also adapt the activity to practice other tenses in the passive voice. In this case you may want to focus on activities or events rather than objects, like an excursion, a dinner party, Bungy Jumping, horse riding, etc.
