Passive Voice ESL Games, Activities & Worksheets

ESL Passive Voice Activity - Speaking: Running Dictation - Pair Work - Reading and Grammar Exercises: Gap-fill, Ordering In this passive voice running dictation activity, students reconstruct a short story and then use the story to complete sentences with the past simple passive or the past perfect passive and order them. In pairs, one student is the reader and the other is the writer. The reader runs to Text A on the wall outside the classroom, reads the first part of the story, tries to remember as much as they can, runs back and dictates the text to their partner who writes it down. This continues until Text A has been fully dictated. Students then swap roles for Text B and the process is repeated. When the story has been completed, students read it with their partner and complete sentences on their worksheet with verbs in the past simple passive or past perfect passive. After that, students put the sentences in the correct order. The first pair of students to complete both exercises correctly wins. show less

ESL Passive Voice Game - Grammar: Completing Sentences - Group Work In this imaginative passive voice game, students practice the past, present and future passive by completing sentence beginnings and endings in teams. Teams begin by completing the beginnings of present simple passive sentences with appropriate sports. When the time limit has been reached, teams swap their worksheet with another team for marking. Teams score one point for each correct answer. Then, the teams repeat the process with sentence tails. Sentence tails are passive sentences in the past, present and future about common celebrations and traditions. The team with the most points at the end of the game is the winner. show less

ESL Mixed Passive Voice Worksheet - Grammar and Writing Exercises: Writing Sentences and Questions - Speaking Activity: Asking and Answering Questions - Pair Work In this productive shoe-themed passive voice worksheet, students practice present simple, past simple, and future simple passive forms in statements, negatives, and questions. First, students put words in order to make present simple passive sentences, writing the verb in the correct passive form. Next, students order words to make past simple passive sentences. Students then put words in the correct order to make negative present simple or past simple passive sentences. After that, students use the words in each row to make future simple passive sentences with the verb in its correct form. Students then write passive questions for a set of answers. Finally, in pairs, students ask and answer questions about their partner's shoes and write six sentences about them using the past, present and future passive. show less

ESL Passive Voice Game - Grammar and Speaking: Gap-fill, Asking and Answering Questions from Prompts - Group Work In this free passive voice game, students practice forming, asking, and answering 'Name three' questions in the past and present passive. In groups, students take turns picking up a card and making a 'Name three' question by completing the gap with the past or present passive form of the verb in brackets. The student then reads the question to the group, e.g. 'Name three books that were made into films.' The group members then race to answer by naming three things belonging to the category. The first student to do this successfully keeps the card. The student with the most cards at the end of the game wins. show less

ESL Passive Voice Worksheet - Grammar and Writing Exercises: Error Correction, Rewriting Sentences - Speaking Activity: Presenting, Freer Practice - Pair Work In this productive passive voice worksheet, students correct common passive voice errors, rewrite active news headlines and summaries in the passive, and then write and present a short passive-voice news report First, students identify mistakes in passive voice sentences and rewrite them so that they are correct. Students then rewrite active voice news headlines in the passive voice. Next, students rewrite active voice news summaries as passive voice news reports. After that, in pairs, students choose a recent event or a prompt and write a short news report, including at least four sentences using the passive voice. Finally, pairs present their news stories to the class. show less

ESL Passive Voice Activity - Speaking: Writing, Asking and Answering Questions from Prompts, Freer Practice In this passive voice 'Find someone who...' activity, students ask and answer questions using the present perfect passive and past simple passive, then report their findings to the class. In pairs, students prepare a yes/no question in the passive for each statement on their worksheet, e.g. 'Were you woken up by an alarm clock today?' Students then stand up and ask their questions to other students in the class. When a classmate answers 'yes' to a question, the student writes that person's name at the beginning of the sentence and asks a follow-up question to find out more information, e.g. 'What time were you woken up?', noting down the answer. Afterwards, students report their findings to the class using the present perfect passive and past simple passive, e.g. 'Paul was woken up by an alarm clock today. He was woken up at 7 o'clock.' show less

ESL Passive Voice Games - Grammar: Matching, Pelmanism, Forming Sentences from Prompts - Group Work In these two engaging passive voice games, students identify past and present passive sentences about facts and inventions. To begin, groups race to identify past and present passive sentences about facts and inventions by correctly matching two parts of a sentence together. The first group to match all the sentence halves correctly wins. After the answers have been checked, students spread out the sentence beginnings and endings face-down in two sets. Students then take turns turning over one card from each set. If the two cards match to make a sentence about a fact or invention, the student reads the passive sentence aloud, keeps the two cards, and has another turn. If the two cards don't match, the student tries to make a grammatically correct passive statement with the beginning of the sentence, e.g. 'The population of the Earth is thought to enjoy eating chocolate.' The sentences do not have to be factually accurate. The student then turns the two cards back over, and it's the next person's turn to play. The student with the most cards at the end of the game wins. show less

ESL Passive Voice Game - Grammar and Speaking: Describing, Forming Sentences, Guessing, Freer Practice - Group Work In this engaging passive voice game, practice describing beliefs and opinions using 'it' + passive reporting verbs and guess target nouns. In groups, students take turns picking up a card and giving three clues that describe the noun on the card using the structure 'it' + passive forms of reporting verbs that are on the board, e.g. 'It is expected that humans will live here in the future.' The first student to guess the noun wins and keeps the card, e.g. Mars. The student with the most cards at the end of the game wins. show less

ESL Passive Voice Game - Grammar and Speaking: Forming Sentence - Pair Work In this free passive voice game, students play Battleships using the past, present and future passive. First, students mark four ships on their grid. Students then play a game of battleships using the passive voice in eight tenses. The aim of the game is to be the first student to find and destroy all their partner's ships. Students then take turns choosing a square on their 'My partner's ships' grid, stating the passive tense and the prompt number, e.g. 'Past simple, prompt 3', and then making a sentence according to the prompt and passive form. If the sentence is in the correct passive form, the other student looks at their 'My ships' grid and says hit or miss. The student who made the sentence then marks the square with an 'H' for hit or 'X' for miss on their 'My partner's ships' grid. If the sentence is incorrect, the shot is invalid. The first student to sink all of their partner's ships wins the game. show less

ESL Passive Voice Worksheet - Grammar Exercises: Binary Choice, Changing Word Form, Gap-fill, Reforming Sentences Here is a useful passive infinitive worksheet to help students practice recognising and using the passive infinitive with modals and other verbs. First, students circle the correct verb forms in passive infinitive sentences. Students then complete sentences by underlining the correct verb and putting the verb in brackets in the passive infinitive form. Next, students rewrite active sentences as passive infinitive sentences. Lastly, students complete each sentence with a verb from a box in its passive infinitive form. show less

ESL Future Perfect Passive Activity - Grammar and Speaking: Matching, Gap-fill, Information Gap, Asking and Answering Questions, Controlled Practice - Pair Work In this interesting future perfect passive activity, students use the future perfect passive to complete information about a hotel. First, in two groups, students match verbs with endings to complete a list of tasks to be done at the hotel today. Next, students complete sentences about the tasks with the verbs in their future perfect passive form. After that, students pair up with someone from the other group and take turns asking their partner future perfect passive questions to find out when the tasks will be done, e.g. 'When will the restaurant have been opened?' Their partner then reads out the answer (e.g. The restaurant will have been opened by 6:00 a.m.), and the student completes the sentence with the answer. This continues until both students have completed their sentences. show less