LUCRARE METODICO-ȘTIINȚIFICĂ PENTRU OBȚINEREA GRADULUI DIDACTIC I Coordonator științific, Lect. Univ. Dr. ANA – MARIA TRANTESCU Candidat, GHERGHIN… [309920]

[anonimizat] I

[anonimizat]. Univ. Dr. ANA – MARIA TRANTESCU

Candidat: [anonimizat], [anonimizat]. VÂLCEA

Seria 2018-2020

[anonimizat]. Univ. Dr. ANA – MARIA TRANTESCU

Candidat: [anonimizat], [anonimizat]. VÂLCEA

Seria 2018-2020

Contents

Contents 1

Introduction 8

Chapter 1 12

[anonimizat] 12

1.1 Levels of passivisation 13

1.1.1The morphological level 13

1.1.3 Classes of verbs that undergo passivisation 16

1.1.3.1. Transitive verbs 16

1.1.3.2 Intransitive verbs 18

1.1.3.3 Complex verbs 18

1.1.4. Semantic and pragmatic aspects of the passive 19

1.1.4.1 Using the passive voice in the legal language. 20

1.1.4.2 The usage of passive voice across registers 21

Chapter 2 23

[anonimizat] 23

2.1 English Language Teaching Approaches 23

2.1.1. Grammar in the foreground 23

2.1.2 Grammar in the background of the learning process 24

2.2 Methods for teaching grammar 27

2.2.1. Grammar-translation 27

2.2.2 The Direct Method 28

2.2.3 Audiolingualism 29

2.2.4. The Silent Way 30

2.2.5. Suggestopedia 31

2.2.6. Community language learning 32

2.2.7. Total physical response 33

2.2.8. Cognitivism 34

2.2.9 The reform movement 35

2.2.10 The reading approach 35

2.2.11 [anonimizat] 36

2.2.12 [anonimizat] 36

2.2.13 [anonimizat] 37

2.2.14 The communicative approach 38

2.2.15 Teaching ‘unplugged’ 42

2.2.16 Task – based learning 43

Chapter 3 45

Research methodology and study 45

3.1 Context of the study 45

3.2 Hypothesis 46

3.3 Objectives of the study 46

3.4 The purpose of the study 46

3.5 The significance of the study 47

3.6. Limitations of the study 48

3.7 Definition of terms 48

3.8 Research methods and procedures 50

3.8.1 The Experiment 50

Conclusions 113

Bibliography 116

Appendices 118

[anonimizat], [anonimizat], [anonimizat].

The students from the gymnasium find the passive voice a [anonimizat], the Grammar Translation or the Communicative approach are better to use when teaching grammar.

Moreover, [anonimizat], when learning grammar.

This paper intends to give a [anonimizat], [anonimizat] and then analyze and try and demonstrate which is the best option when learning and teaching grammar, in order to make sure that the choice we make is the most effective and that it helps the students not only develop accuracy but also fluency.

Therefore, we want nor only to make the students learn the rules of forming and using the passive voice but also to help them develop their communicative competence, we want them to be able to use the passive voice in their real life situations of communication, or at least in situations which are very similar to real-life situations of communication.

Nowadays mastering a foreign language is very necessary, especially the English language since it is spoken and learned worldwide and thanks to this on-going process of globalization and even the NATO and EU integration of Romania, in our case, people are able to travel, to study, to live and to work anywhere, thus they need to speak a foreign language in order to be able to do that. This is the reason why, even the gymnasium students and their parents are more and more interested in the English language and most of them want to be able to speak the language. Because of the communist era before 1989, the majority of the parents generations have studied Russian in stead of English during their formal instruction and that is another aspect for which they want their students to learn the English language.

More than that, nowadays the employers demand for English speaking employees since they are now working at an international level, they work with firms from other countries, so they need English speaking employees for that. Another reason why both the students and their parents want the students to learn English is because it gives them the possibility to get a better job or even it gives them the opportunity to train or promote easily.

The reason why we stopped at the Grammar Translation and the Communicative Approach precisely has also been related to what we have exemplified above, that is the reason why the students and their parents want them to learn English. Better said grammar focuses on accuracy and communication focuses on fluency, as we said, and since most of the students and their parents demand for good speaking skills, we have to take this into consideration when deciding which procedure to choose.

As a secondary school teacher we have to grow aware of the changes the society is facing and we have to adapt our decisions at these changes, we have to give the students the possibility to build the base for their English learning, during the gymnasium and to try to give them confidence to use the language learned during the English classes freely, even though they do not master the language from a grammatical perspective.

The shift from the traditional way of teaching grammar in a teacher-centered environment to a communicative approach, focusing on the students needs and putting the students in the center of the teaching process has been done because of this globalization process. Nowadays, people need a foreign language especially to give and ask for information, so it is very important not only to know the grammar structures learned but it is more important to be able to use them in the communicative situations that they might encounter. If we compare the process of learning foreign languages to the process of learning our mother tongue, we shall observe that the children are able to speak their mother tongue without even knowing what the term grammar means. Thus, students should focus mainly on communication and on integrating the grammatical structures and the vocabulary learned in their communication situations and the Grammar Translation only focuses on accuracy, without focusing on the skills, especially on integrating the four skills and the grammar taught.

Lately it has been argued that it is more motivating for the students to be involved in the teaching and learning process, to focus and build the activities according to the students’ needs. That is why, during this research we have also tried to pay attention to the students’ opinions concerning the experience they had during the experiment.

This thesis is structured in three chapters, plus the introduction, conclusion and annexes. In the introduction we have presented the reasons for which we have stopped at this particular topic and the reasons why lots of studies have been done, concerning the topic of English Language Teaching.

The first chapter illustrates the theoretical background of the passive voice in English, the instances of using and forming the passive voice, while the second chapter deals with the theory concerning the most important ELT methods and approaches that have been thought at and used over the years.

The third chapter is based on the experiment that we have organized. It presents the hypothesis, the number of subjects, the objectives, the instruments used, the procedure and the worksheets and tests given during the experiment.

In order to give our experiment more reliability, we have also used a questionnaire, as an instrument, after the experiment, which was meant to give us even clearer results on the impact that the two approaches used, had on the students.

The hypothesis of our study was that if taught with the Communicative approach, grammar structures, such as the passive voice, can be better understood and easier to be used in daily activities of communication, by the students, rather than being taught with the Grammar Translation method and that even though teaching grammar using Grammar Translation might be more efficient in learning the rules of forming and using the passive voice it will be more difficult for the students to use it in their own sentences.

We have also had in mind the following objectives:

To discover whether the Communicative approach is more efficient in teaching grammar structures, such as the passive voice;

To investigate the impact the two ELT approaches have on the secondary students and which one is preferred by them;

To find out whether there are any significant differences in the students’ competence of using the passive voice in their own situations of communication after Grammar Translation and the Communicative approach.

Moreover, the present study aims at proposing a shift in the ELT approaches usually used by teachers, in teaching grammar structures, such as the passive voice, trying to demonstrate that, even though we could think that it is better and more effective to use the Grammar Translation method when teaching grammar, for the students’ needs nowadays, it is more appropriate and effective to use the Communicative approach because it develops the students communicative competence, as a whole, giving them the opportunity to use the grammatical structures learned in their own situations of communication, very similar to the real ones, to the situations they will meet in their daily life. Thanks to the globalization process that we are living nowadays, we have to bare in mind that the students need the language they learn for social integration and maybe for future training or jobs, so they do not only need to master the grammar of the language learned but also to use the language, to be able to speak and write the language and to read and listen and understand what they read or listen. That is the reason why we have thought at this contrastive study, because the Grammar Translation does not focus on the language skills, which we believe that are very important nowadays.

The analysis we have done was mostly a quantitative one, focusing on the results and the amount of positive answers related to one of the approaches compared.

In conclusion, we have tried to compare the two methods, when teaching the passive voice because we believe that the communicative competence should be developed in an integrated way, together with all the other skills involved, because, we think that this is the most effective way.

Chapter 1

The category of voice in English – theoretical approaches on the passive voice

This chapter is meant to bring into discussion the most important theoretical aspects of the grammatical category of voice in English, with focus on the passive voice. In order to explain and understand the topic passive voice, we need to understand the grammatical category of voice and the contrast between the active voice, which is an unmarked voice pattern and the passive voice which is marked.

According to Cambridge English Dictionary, voice is the relationship between the subject of the verb and the action described by the verb, or the forms of a verb that show this relationship: the active/passive voice. Moreover, Carter (2006) in Trantescu (2018:110) states that the voice gives the reader/hearer information on the roles that the participants have in the event described by the verb phrase. That is, whether the participants are the doers or the agents of the action or if they are the recipients.

As we mentioned above, the main contrasts are done between the active and the passive voice. The active voice is the most used in daily situations of communication since it is simpler and it puts the agent, which is both, the grammatical and the logical subject of the action, at the beginning of the sentence.

E.g The boy lost the bike.

Logical/grammatical subject the direct object

(who lost the bike? – the boy) (what did the boy loose? – the bike)

On the other hand, if we turn the sentence above into the passive voice, we shall observe that the grammatical subject is no longer the same with the logical subject of the sentence and that the grammatical subject becomes the recipient of the action.

The bike was lost by the boy.

Grammatical subject the logical subject

The recepient the by-phrase/the doer of the action

As we have demonstrated above, the direct object from the active voice becomes the subject in the passive voice.

The mechanic is reparing the car.

The car is being repaired by the mechanic.

Another issue which can be observed in the demonstrations above is the usage of the preposition by in front of the recipient of the action. Moreover, from the perspective of form, we have to notice the usage of the auxiliary TO BE, a fact which we mentioned above, since we have already said that the passive voice is a marked passive pattern.

Thus, to form the passive voice we use the auxiliary TO BE, at any tense, followed by the past participle of the main verb.

The horse ate the apple.

Past Simple of the main verb – active voice

The apple was eaten by the horse.

Past simple of the auxiliary TO BE + the past participle of the main verb – passive voice

Even though the sentence in the passive voice has the same meaning as the one in the active voice, there is a difference between the two. As Wales (2006) in Trantescu (2018:111) states, the focus in the passive voice changes, the doer in no longer important, and the focus is on the recipient, on the action and its result rather than on the agent.

1.1 Levels of passivisation

1.1.1The morphological level

According to Trantescu (2018:111) passivisation occurs at three language levels: the morphological level, the syntactic level and the semantic – pragmatic level.

The morphological level refers to the form of the verb, that is the auxiliary TO BE/TO GET followed by the past participle of the main verb. The auxiliary is the one that changes according to the grammatical categories of person, mood, number, tense and aspect.

We shall present below the passive forms of the verb TO PAINT at all the tenses and moods.

As we can notice from the table above, the passive voice does not have forms for all the tenses from the continuous aspect. Even though we have said that the auxiliary used to form the passive voice is the verb TO BE, there are some other verbs which can be used, such as TO GET and TO BECOME.

TO GET is not used to express states, such as the auxiliary TO BE, but to express changing situations, with focus on the result and not on the action itself, as Trantescu (2018:112) states. Moreover, the verb GET is required by certain classes of verbs, such as:

Verbs of result, such as: break, catch, fire, hurt, hack, lose, kill, stole expressing unexpected, desired or negative actions:

She got fired because she didn’t succeed doing the tasks she was given.

I got promoted to manager.

The government’s server got hacked yesterday.

Verbs expressing the idea of doing something to ourselves, such as: dress, marry, mix.

My husband and I got married thirteen years ago.

In other situations, the verb GET used with the passive voice indicates the fact that the grammatical subject is involved in the action:

They were invited to the party. (They were invited by someone.)

They got invited to the party. (They succeeded being invited.)

There are also some fixed expressions that use a get-passive, such as: get lost, get ready, get winded, etc, from which some are idiomatic, while some are simply collocations.

Another substitute of BE, in the passive voice, is the verb TO BECOME, but it is rarely used, with the meaning of changing situations or states, from one to another.

The usage of smart phones has become spread among the teenagers.

1.1.2 The syntactic level

The transformations occurring at the syntactic level are in the order of words and the status the subject and object noun phrases have, according to Trantescu (2018:114).

That is, the subject from the active voice becomes the object of agent in the passive voice, while the object from the active voice becomes subject in the passive voice sentence.

Carter & McCarthy (2006) in Trantescu (2018:115) state that there are situations when the agent phrase is omitted, situations which are called agentless passives or short passive, as other linguists prefer to say.

This happens in the following situations:

The speaker does not know the doer of the action

The bag was left in front of the door.

It does not give any information about the doer of the action, since it consists of an indefinite noun or pronoun (somebody, people, they, one, etc.).

Active voice: They build good cars in Germany.

Passive voice: Good cars are built in Germany.

It is hidden or unmentioned by the speaker

Mistakes have been done. (the speaker does not want to tell the doer, he wants to hide the doer of the action)

The glasses are broken.

It has been previously mentioned and it can easily be inferred by the hearer.

The French fought the Ho Chi Minh’s forces at Dien Bien Phu and the French were defeated.

In passives using the verb GET

They got married yesterday.

Moreover as Carter & McCarthy state there are some other situations when the by-agent is omitted, such as (ibid. 116):

There constructions

There were no injured found after the tornado.

The anticipatory it

It was meant to happen.

In impersonal styles, when the focus is on the process

The pills are to be taken daily.

Pseudo-passives (ibid. 116), which are referred to passive voice because they share some features with regular passive forms, e.g. the affected participant of the action is expressed as the grammatical subject, and thus the agent typically becomes the object or is omitted. More interestingly, they are termed “pseudo” because they differ from the regular passive voice in terms of usage and function, e.g. the degree of involvement of the recipient (Carter & McCarthy, 2006, p. 793).

The pseudo-passives mentioned are formed using the following structure:

HAVE/GET + Object + Past Participle of the main verb:

We had our car repaired.

Jake had to write an article on juvenile violence and he got extra money paid for it.

1.1.3 Classes of verbs that undergo passivisation

1.1.3.1. Transitive verbs

Transitive verbs, according to Cambridge English Dictionary, is a verb that has or needs an object. Better said, in order to make sense they need to be followed by an object.

Monotransitive verbs, verbs followed by a direct object: drink, eat, love, meet, need, read, seek, write, hate, respect, etc.

The child drank the milk.

The milk was drunk by the child.

However, there are some monotransitive verbs which do not undergo passivisation, as Trantescu (2018:117-118) states. For example, there are verbs such as: contain, fit, have, hold, lack, possess and resemble.

You resemble your mother.

Then, there are some monotransitive verbs which can undergo passivisation when referring to activities but cannot undergo passivisation when referring to states.

My parents have a nice house by the beach.

*A nice house by the beach is had by my parents.

You can have snacks and cocktails by the pool.

Snacks and cocktails can be had by the pool.

Another constraint for this class of verbs is for the reflexive, reciprocal and possessive pronouns (Trantescu 2018:118).

Ditransitive verbs, verbs that can take two direct objects: ask, teach, envy, strike, cost, change, etc.

As Nedelcu (2004: 326) claims, in this situation, either the animate or inanimate object can become subject in the passive voice sentence, but it is more frequent for the animate object to become subject.

Mrs. Jane taught us History.

We were taught History by Mrs. Jane.

History was taught to us by Mrs. Jane.

Moreover, Trantescu (2018: 118) states that verbs such as: allow, award, deny, grant, , hand, lend, offer, pay, present, promise, recommend, refuse, sent, show, tell, are followed by an animate indirect object and an inanimate direct object, situation in which both objects can become subject in the passive construction, only that, when the indirect object becomes subject, it is preceded by the preposition TO.

Even though both cases are possible, it is more common to use the [+animate] object as subject, since it is more preferable to use a human being as subject rather than a thing, while the [- animate] object become a by-phrase, if needed in the sentence, as we explained earlier, that there are cases when it can be omitted.

Jane sent me a postcard from Cyprus.

I was sent a postcard from Cyprus by Jane. [+animate]

A postcard from Cyprus was sent to me by Jane. [- animate]

Transitive verbs followed by a direct object and a prepositional object: blame smb. for smth., charge smb. with smth., help smb. with smth., congratulate smb. for smth., etc. (Nedelcu 2004:326), situation in which the direct object becomes the subject of the passive sentence.

The stranger helped me with my luggage.

I was helped by the stranger with my luggage.

Transitive verbs followed by a ‘that-clause’

According to Trantescu (2018:119), verbs of perception, mental cognition and declarative verbs, such as: believe, consider, suppose, think, hear, say, are followed by a ‘that-clause’ in the active voice or by a complex construction, situation in which the sentences can have two ways of forming the passive voice.

They consider that she is the prettiest girl in the class. (that-clause)

They consider her to be the prettiest girl in the class.(Accusative + Infinitive construction)

The two ways of forming the passive voice are either an impersonal construction or a Nominative + Infinitive construction, as follows:

It is considered that she is the prettiest girl in the class.

She is considered to be the prettiest girl in the class.

1.1.3.2 Intransitive verbs

According to Nedelcu (2004:327), there are some intransitive prepositional verbs that can be used in the passive voice, such as: agree about, agree on, agree to, aim at, argue about, arrange for, ask for, believe in, call for, call on, laugh at, look at, look for, look after, look into, run over, write about, etc.

Asian babysitters are looking after our children nowadays.

Our children are looked after by Asian babysitters nowadays.

Moreover, as Trantescu (2018:120) states, some prepositional verbs, like: look into, go into, arrive at, can be used in the passive voice only with a figurative or abstract meaning and not when they have a concrete meaning.

She looked into the bag to see if she had everything with her.

*The bag was looked into by her, to see if she had everything with her.

They looked into the problem to see if they could find a solution.

The problem was looked into to see if they could find a solution.

1.1.3.3 Complex verbs

There are two classes of verbs or verbal expressions that can be included here: the phrasal prepositional verbs and the idiomatic verbal expressions.

Phrasal prepositional verbs, which are structures consisting of a verb, an adverbial particle and a preposition, take as subject in the passive voice the object of the preposition (break out of, get on with, look forward to, do away with, put up with, etc.).

The tigers broke out of their cage.

The tigers’ cage was broken out of.

Idiomatic verbal expressions such as: lose sight of, make fun of, make use of, pay attention to, put an end to, take notice of, do not separate from the noun, when turning into the passive voice, since there is a strong connection between the verb and the noun from the structure.

You mustn’t lose sight of the baby.

The baby mustn’t be lost sight of.

However, according to Trantescu (2018:122), there are some idiomatic verbal phrases that can have two passive constructions: take care of, take notice of, pay attention to, etc.

They paid no attention to the film.

The film was paid no attention.

No attention was paid to the film.

Levitchi (2006 : 136) states that there are some verbs which have a passive meaning although used in the active voice, which are called ‘passivals’: read, sell, peel, iron, wash, flood, etc.

The magazines sold quickly due to the article about Metallica.

In this situation the passivisation is achieved only at the syntactic level, without affecting the morphology of the verb. Thus, the direct object becomes the grammatical subject without changing the structure of the verb into the passive voice. In these situations, there are some adverbs of manner which qualify the process: rapidly, quickly, easily, well, etc. (Trantescu 2018: 122).

1.1.4. Semantic and pragmatic aspects of the passive

English codifies a number of important grammatical meanings which are associated with the verb. These include tense, aspect, voice and functional roles. Many languages encode the timing of a designated event lexically, by inserting expressions equivalent to yesterday, last year, next week etc. However, only languages such as English or Spanish that encode timing distinctions by means of grammatical elements can be said to manifest the grammatical feature of tense.

Moreover, there has always been a link between functional roles and grammatical characterizations such as subject and object. Traditionally, the subject is the ‘doer’ and the object is the ‘done to’ (in the active voice), but there are frequent situations when this is not so (ibid. : 148). one of the situations being in the passive voice, where we have already demonstrated that the grammatical subject is not the logic subject, the doer of the action, but the one that suffers the action.

1.1.4.1 Using the passive voice in the legal language.

According to Trantescu (2018 : 123), the passive voice is commonly used in the legal discourse since it gives the speaker the opportunity to make no direct reference to the doer of the action. Moreover, we have already mentioned previously that the passive voice is used when the doer of the action is not known or is not clearly specified.

Thus, as Hewings (2005:48) claims, there are a number of reasons for using the passive voice in the legal register, such as:

To omit the agent, when it is unimportant, unknown, obvious, indefinite ‘people in general’:

The witness’s statement can be found at the end of this document.

A form must be filled in.

In writing, when describing processes or procedures:

Nuclear waste will still be radioactive even after 20,000 years, so it must be disposed of very carefully. It can be stored in stainless-steel containers which are encased in concrete. The most dangerous nuclear waste can be turned into glass. It is planned to store this glass in deep underground mines.

To avoid a direct reference to the agent, in more formal contexts:

You will be given a privacy agreement contract to sign, before the interview.

To put the division of information structure in a sentence, the topic (what is the sentence about or what it is known about the topic) and the comment (what is said about the topic or what is not known about the topic):

The three machines tested for the report contained different types of safety valve. All the equipment was manufactured by the Boron Group in Germany.

To put long subjects at the end of the sentence:

The police were astonished to see that she had come to confess the murder without even being suspected.

Looking back to the rules above illustrated by Hewings, we can observe that the passive voice used in the legal register has more functions than in daily situations of communication. The first three rules illustrated above are all found in formal registers and the legal register is seen as a formal one, but they can also be found in informal or less formal registers.

However, the last two rules of more common for the legal discourse since the legal register abounds in long or extremely long sentences, which are not very frequent in the other types of texts, and this facilitates reading a long text, because the subject is put at the end of it.

Even though the passive voice can be seen as more appropriate for the legal register, critics have argued that it can sometimes be very ambiguous, and they have claimed that there are some situations when it can be used without any ambiguity. For example Wydick (1998: 33) or Enquist & Oates (2001:71-76), who have a very similar opinion on this matter. Some of the most important rules of using the passive voice without creating any ambiguity, illustrated by them are:

To emphasize the thing done and not the doer of it;

To introduce a longer part of the sentence;

To assure a greater cohesion in the text, in the pattern of theme and rheme. (because the flow of given and new information in a text needs to follow some patterns in order to assure cohesion).

Moreover, according to Trantescu (2018:123), the passive voice gives the impression of authority and objectivity to the text, since it has this impersonal structure. However, there are formal situations, such as contracts, where the passive voice is not very frequently used because both parts of it prefer the terms to be very precise, and we have already illustrated that there are some situations when it could be ambiguous.

The most frequent types of documents in which the passive is used are regulations, directives, Acts of Parliament, treaties, etc.

The explanation for such a thing is that they want the hearer/reader to focus on the actions and their results and not on the people or authorities expected to perform them, that is why the agent is hardly ever mentioned.

1.1.4.2 The usage of passive voice across registers

As we have demonstrated above, the passive voice, although it might seem a bit sophisticated or ambiguous, it is frequently used in written language and especially in specialized texts. Biber in Trantescu (2018:124) states that short passives, passives without mentioning the agent, are more frequent than the long passives. He also claims that the usage across register of both long and short passives is variable.

Moreover, he claims (65) that the passive voice is rarely used in all spoken academic registers but it is moderately used in all written academic registers, depending on the disciplines we are talking about. For example, scientific academic texts, such as engineering, use more frequently the passive voice, because they focus on actions and the entities affected by the actions, in cases where the agent in understood or unimportant. In many cases, the agent is simply understood to be the author or the general consensus of researchers in the field.

Passive structures are also frequent in news, academic prose but very rare in conversation.

Trantescu (2018:124) points out that there are three interrelated principles for choosing the long passive structures, instead of the active voice, such as:

The information flow principle, presenting new information at the end of the sentence, a principle that we have already illustrated above;

The end-weight principle, meaning that the lengthier part of the clause to be placed at the end, to facilitate the processing of the rest of the clause;

To focus on the theme of the clause.

In conclusion, Biber in (ibid:124) points out that the passive voice brings into the reader’s /hearer’s attention the recipient of the action and not the agent of it, the passive voice being more frequently used in expository registers, where the agents are not very relevant or they might even be unknown.

Moreover, in news, for example, the passive structures are more often used for negative events and there are some verbs which are more often used in the passive voice (be born) and others which are not (want, like).

Chapter 2

Teaching English – theoretical approaches

2.1 English Language Teaching Approaches

Teaching grammar has been one of the most debated topics in ELT, since recent studies have argued that teachers should concentrate more on communication than on the grammatical accuracy of the learners. However, there are lots of studies, pro and against, and as far as we are concerned, the teacher should also have in mind the learners’ needs when deciding how important grammar should be. First of all, we shall look into the main approaches to teaching English.

2.1.1. Grammar in the foreground

Over the years, it has been argued a lot, whether grammar should be in the foreground or background of the second language teaching. We shall first look at the main arguments for teaching grammar in the foreground.

The sentence – machine argument:

This argument, also known as item-learning, is based on the memorisation of a number of phrases and words, which is also part of the language learning process, since grammar itself is a description of rules in a language. Thus it allows the learners to generate a wide number of original sentences. Seen as a sentence-making machine, means that grammar learning and teaching give the students the opportunity to limitless linguistic creativity, as Thornbury S. (Thorbury S. 1999) states.

The fine- turning argument:

Grammar teaching is also seen as a solution for the situations in which the learners, based on a merely lexical system, do not succeed in making intelligible appropriate sentences. For example:

*Sleeping to much her thought it was night already.

*I were asked too come.

Thus, learning grammar allows the students to create correct appropriate sentences, which are important especially in written language or formal language, where we need explicitness.

The fossilisation argument:

It is argued that learners, although having amazing levels of language proficiency, unless having been instructed previously, they are more likely to reach a language plateau, which is very difficult to go beyond, than those learners who have been instructed.

Researchers believe that an instructed learner is not as exposed as an uninstructed learner, to the fossilisation of his linguistic competence.

The advance-organiser argument:

This is about the delayed effect of grammar learning, better said the instruction that we receive in a former situation, allow us to grow aware of some structures which we might not grow aware of, without some previous instruction. Thus, our previous grammar learning functions as a type of advance organiser for our later acquisition of language.

The discrete item:

Since language is an enormous set of rules, it is argued that if we organise it into narrower units, also known as discrete items, the learners would not feel overwhelmed anymore by grammar, and they would gain confidence. In this respect, teachers or grammarians should organise the items in order to be dealt with in a lesson or an exercise.

The rule – of – law argument:

This argument is based on transmission, better said the teacher, who has the knowledge has to transmit it to the learner, who does not have it. This approach however is associated with rules and discipline and it might be seen as a solution for large classes of unruly teenagers where a free communication based approach might be out of discussion.

The learner expectations argument:

The learners’ expectations should not be ignored by the teachers, since this may be frustrating for them and may discourage them. The teachers should be aware of the learners’ expectations, whether they want a more efficient, a more systematic learning experience or they might just want to get involved and communicate more, and they should prepare their activities according to their students expectations.

2.1.2 Grammar in the background of the learning process

We have brought into discussion some of the pro-grammar arguments, but now we shall present some of the arguments that the researchers have brought against grammar, or at least putting grammar in the background of the language learning process.

The knowledge-how argument:

This argument is based on the experiential learning or learning –by- doing approach. According to Thornbury S. (1999-18), if language can be seen as a skill, it means that it can be compared to bike riding, thus you learn it by doing it, not by studying it. In theory we know what driving a car for example involves, but that does not mean that we can actually drive a car if we do not practise it or a better example we know what changing a tire involves but it does not mean that we actually know how to do it. In other words, it is stated that the learners do not need lots of grammar but real use of language. This argument is based on the experiential learning cycle:

Fig. 1 The experiential learning cycle

As Scrivener J. (21), describes it, the experiential learning cycle involves doing an activity, then recalling what we have done, after that reflecting on it and then drawing conclusions and finally using the conclusions for future experience.

The communication argument:

This argument is the cornerstone of the Communicative Approach or Communicative Language Teaching, which was a revolution in the theory of language teaching, started in the 1970s. According to Thornbury S. (1999-18), theorists have been arguing that grammar knowledge is only one piece of the puzzle called the communicative competence, which involves not just knowing the grammar and vocabulary, but also knowing how to use the grammar and vocabulary learned in order to achieve communicative goals in a socially appropriate way.

In this perspective, two schools of thought have argued that the best way to learn a language is to communicate, therefore use it. One of the two stated that the best way to learn a language is to learn the rules and then apply them, while the other one stated that it would be better to use the language in real-life situations of communication and, this way, the grammar will be also acquired, without wasting time in learning rules.

The acquisition argument:

In the 1970s, linguists looked at the way we learn our first language and they came to the conclusion that this might work also for the second language learning. In this way, according to Krashen in Thornbury S. (1999-19), we should look at the difference between acquisition and learning because learning is seen as a result of instruction, while acquisition is seen as a natural process. According to Krashen, learning is a result of formal instruction, mainly in grammar, which is not a useful in real-life situations of communication, while acquisition is a natural process, which is made possible by the exposure of the student to a correct input in a relaxing environment, so that the innate learning capacities to be triggered. This theory was seen as a reaction to ”drill-and-repeat” type of methodology and it had a great impact on the teaching methodology that followed.

The natural order argument:

According to Thornbury, another argument against grammar, was the idea of an innate universal grammar, idea first mentioned by Noam Chomsky, who states that human beings have a natural order in learning grammar structures, different from the order taught. This argues that it is wrong to try and stick to a traditional rigid grammar and insist on immediate accuracy.

The lexical chunks argument:

In order to understand this argument, we have to explain what chunks of language are. They are somewhere between words and sentences, larger than words, but smaller than sentences. In this respect, it has been stated that children learn chunks of language, which are understood, and unpacked later, and after that they can build new combinations, using the chunks learned. In recent years, it has been argued that a better approach to learning languages would be the lexical approach rather the sentence grammar teaching, since it also deals with daily used structures, such as: Have you ever…, Would you like…, Do you like…, Will you help…etc. Therefore, the teacher can teach first, for example when we talk about teaching the modal verb ”can” for ability, chunks of language using the structure and then, when they are more competent develop, unpack the structure, and understand all its components: ”I can jump”, ”She can jump”, ”Can you jump?”, ”Yes, I can/No, I can’t”.

The learner expectations argument:

The last argument against grammar that Thornbury brings into discussion is the learners’ expectations that is what do the learners really need or want from their English classes. There are students who need mostly grammar, for example learners that need to apply for a National examination for police schools, or there are students who need to develop their speaking skills, in order to apply for scholarship or for a job where they need to use the language more orally. Therefore, it is the teacher who needs to find the best activities, in order to involve all the learners and their needs, it is crucially important to get them involved and to assure them that the activities proposed by the teacher are useful because that is how they get motivated.

2.2 Methods for teaching grammar

Over the years there have been lots of studies on the methods and approaches used by teachers in order to find the best solutions for them and learners as well. The discussions were on whether it is better for the learner or the teacher to be the central point in the teaching environment or on whether rules should be taught inductively or deductively, on whether teaching should be a very serious formal environment or whether it should be less stressful. Therefore, many theories and methods have been developed.

2.2.1. Grammar-translation

As it can be understood from its name, these methods started from teaching grammar structures explicitly, followed by translation exercises from the target language to their mother tongue and then from their mother tongue to the target language.

Educationalists’ view of language teaching using this method was that the learning process should focus on grammatical rules, analysing the rules and then applying them into exercises. It implies several debatable issues, such as little or zero speaking practice or translating short isolated texts or sentences, usually not dealing with authentic texts, artificial texts, especially prepared for classroom practice, learning lists of words by heart and focusing on accuracy.

One of its biggest problems is that the teacher is in the centre of the teaching process, the students are not allowed to be creative since everything is done by the teacher, they just have to answer to the teacher’s questions.

According to Murar & Trantescu (2016:10), the main objective of learning a language, from the perspective of this approach, is to read the literature of the foreign language and to develop one’s own knowledge, that is the reason why reading and writing are mainly taught and not the listening and speaking skills, together with translation skills. The teacher uses literary texts to be traduced and the unknown vocabulary is translated and then learned by heart.

When dealing with errors, the teacher corrects them immediately or gives the answers when they cannot do this. Everything is highly controlled by the teacher, that is why not even when evaluating, the students do not have to be creative. The tests are mainly done using objective items and semi-objective items, such as: translating texts, answering questions about them or the culture of the target language, , using the grammar rules learned, etc.

Krashe in Murar & Trantescu (2016: 12), states that there has to be made a distinction between the conscious and unconscious acquisition of a language. That is, when learning the process is done consciously and this does not mean that the students communicate, they use the rules learned consciously which is isolated from the natural language, whereas when they acquire a language, the do it unconscious from the grammatical rules, which are also learned, but in an inductive way.

2.2.2 The Direct Method

This is a method which appeared as a reaction to the restrictive Grammar Translation method, developing at the end of the nineteenth century.

It was seen as a natural, revolutionary method since it argued that the main disadvantage of the grammatical approach was that it was too focused on written language, therefore it was proposing a more orally view on the language teaching. There was a change in the way grammar was taught too. If the Grammar Translation method was dealing with the grammar structures deductively, here it was taught inductively, that is the students learned the grammatical structures from exposure to language. The teachers had to speak with the students, using mainly the target language, using a lot of dialogues in the classroom instead of the restrictive translation exercises.

They believed that the grammatical structures and rules are learned similarly to the way children learned their mother tongue, therefore the mother tongue should be avoided in the classroom.

Instead of using the mother tongue for explaining the vocabulary items the teacher uses realia, visual aids or pantomime because the main goal is to help students speak the target language and think in the target language. If we are to compare the Grammar Translation method to the Direct Method, the later is closer to the Communicative approach, although the grammar structures still have a very important role. For example, the teacher encourages dialogues and communication in the classroom, but the dialogues are directed by the teacher in order to cover the grammatical structures studied, this still represents a nucleus of the teaching process. Moreover the teacher is still in the centre of the process but there is more interaction between the students and the teacher than in the Grammar Translation classes.

The evaluation is mainly focused on oral interactions and assigned paragraphs while the grammatical rules are to be guessed from the examples given by the teacher.

2.2.3 Audiolingualism

Derived from behaviourism and related to the Direct Method, Audiolingualism focused also on the speaking skills but it was even more restrictive to the teaching of grammar structures. The idea from which it started was that language can also be learned through a continuous process of forming correct habits.

It was based on stimulus-response-reinforcement, using drills to form the correct habits in the learners. In order to do that, teachers had to use pattern drills, a list of sentence patterns, which were continuously being repeated after the teacher, and then some words were replaced and it continued in this way:

Teacher: There is a cat on the sofa.

Student: There is a cat on the sofa.

Teacher: Dog

Student: There is a dog on the sofa.

Teacher: Doll

Student: There is a doll on the sofa.

Teacher: On the armchair.

Student: There is a doll on the armchair.

Teacher: On the table.

Student: There is a doll on the table.

The problem with audiolingualism was that it was mainly stuck at the sentence level without using authentic texts or real-life situations of communication. As Harmer J. (2015:57) states, the purpose of this method was habit-formation through constant repetition of correct utterances, encouraged by positive reinforcement through teacher praise or the simple acknowledgement that if the drill continues it was correct. Critics argued that it is not mindful, that repetitive drills don’t allow the learners to use the language meaningfully. Moreover, it has been argued that it does not allow using creativity, both of the teacher and students since the drills are not very creative, they are artificial phrases and sentences, which become more and more difficult, but this do not mean that they are authentic texts.

Another important issue with this approach is that it is very well related to phonetics, teachers have to make immediate correction on pronunciation, intonation or fluency, focusing on pronunciation, but still, as we mentioned earlier, it does not imply any creativity. The tests imply mostly discrete point items, as Murar & Trantescu (2016:23), state, while the errors are avoided by the teacher’s control over what they teach and explanations for the parts that are considered to be more difficult.

According to Krashen in Murar & Trantescu (2016:23), classes start with some dialogues where the vocabulary pattern or grammatical structures to be taught, are found. Then, the students have to memorize the dialogue, followed by pattern drills which contain the vocabulary of grammar structures taught, which are repeated, using also substitution, transformation or even translations.

2.2.4. The Silent Way

The most distinctive issue about the Silent Way is that the teacher here tries to speak as little as possible, an aspect brought into discussion by Caleb Gattegno, who stated that the students learned better and easier if they create language themselves, if they discover structures by themselves and not only by repeating or remembering structures taught by the teacher. The main goal of this method is to put the teacher in the background of the teaching process and bring the students in the foreground. The teacher has to be as silent as possible, uttering a model sentence only once and after that, directing and controlling the students only by using mimics or other visual aids. The students are expected to repeat the sentences uttered by the teacher, such as in the example of using Cuisenaire Rods. These are rods of different colours, which are expected to make the students grow aware of the forms and shapes. Such an activity would be like this: the teacher uttering the word ‘rod’ and the students repeating, then the teacher uttering ‘a red rod’, showing a rod which is red and the students repeating and after that the teacher has only to show them a coloured rod and the students will utter ‘ a green rod’, for example. After that, using wall charts, the students have to build word stings, using the words previously learned. This view was meant to grow the students self-reliance and confidence to express their own feelings and ideas, to develop their independence and to develop their inner correctness criteria.

The errors that the students make are seen as a natural part of the learning process and the teachers are very attentive at the students feelings, they monitor the students continuously and try to avoid the feelings interfering with the learning process.

From the beginning, all four skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening are taught and also pronunciation which is very important. Translation is not used but the mother tongue is seen as a resource and not as an impediment.

The most important thing is that the teacher has to remain silent as much as possible and indicate the errors by staying at the same exercise and showing them that they have spoken correctly by moving to the next topic. It is believed that because of the low involvement of the teacher, the students learn how to solve problems, by themselves, they learn the language consciously. The role of the teacher being that of a facilitator since he has to help them learn by activating them.

2.2.5. Suggestopedia

A procedure designed by Georgi Lozanov, based on the learning environment. That is, students need safety, comfort, trust and relaxation in order to be able to learn. The teacher becomes another parent for the student, avoiding traumatic topics and using music, mainly Baroque, as Harmer J. points out (2015: 65). At this stage students use a previously taught dialogue and music. Moreover, there is also a moment of solemn silence and then the students leave the room in silence.

According to Trantescu & Murar (2016:18), a commonly used scenario would look like this: first the teacher reads a dialogue for the students, who are sitting comfortably and listening. At this stage they are provided with the translation of the text as well as with the text itself. Then, they have to listen the teacher reading the dialogue once more, but this time they do not read anymore, they only listen. During these stages, as we mentioned above, classical Baroque music is played.

By this method, Lozano believed that the students would be able to get rid of the learning barriers that they may come up with, as students are just asked to listen, in an relaxing environment, accompanied by music, and then, in a later stage, they are asked to practice the dialogues, but in a playful environment.

The main goal of this method is that the students will learn the language for everyday situations of communication, overcoming any psychological barriers that they may experience during the learning process.

As Trantescu & Murar (2016:19) state, the teacher has an authoritarian role and the students respect and trust their teacher, but in the same time, the teacher creates a safe environment, a barrier free environment, giving the students the opportunity to learn without feeling inhibited or frustrated.

Suggestopedia involves choosing a new identity in the foreign language culture, using dialogues, translations and even taking notes in the mother tongue. The process of teaching the dialogues is split in two musical concerts: first the teacher reads the dialogue aloud, matching his voice with the rhythm and pitch of the music, while the students follow ans second, the teacher reads the dialogue again, now in a normal tone, while the students listen relaxed. In point of interaction, at the beginning the students only listen or use only some of the words they have already practiced and the teacher is the one that starts the interaction activities, and after that the students initiate themselves dialogues, directed by the teacher.

This approach is mainly focused on the communicative use of language rather than on its form, emphasizing the vocabulary and teaching some explicit grammar, involving also reading and writing skills. The mother tongue is used to explain the meaning of the dialogues, but as the process develops it is used less, than at the beginning.

Concerning assessment and evaluation, since it focuses on a barrier free environment, tests are avoided because they are seen as potential threats to the relaxation of the students. The teacher does not correct the errors when they are made, he creates correct forms later on.

As St. Krashen (1981) in Trantescu & Murar (2016:20) states, this approach is based on relaxing classes, where the teacher tries to create the proper atmosphere and to act the core dialogues in an explicit way, providing optimal input without focusing too much on grammar structures.

2.2.6. Community language learning

This method puts the teacher outside the circle of students, supporting the students to express themselves by translating or suggesting what they want to say or even amending the students utterances. He can then record their utterances and allow them to analyze themselves later on. The teacher’s role is that of a “knower” or “consellor” while the students are the clients. As in the case on Suggestopedia, the Community language learning method is also designed to take place in an environment where the tension is avoided, trying to create a relationship based on trust and safety. One of the advantages of this method is the flexibility of the syllabus, which develops together with the teaching process.

2.2.7. Total physical response

Linguists believed that the students could learn from commands, as children do in their mother tongue. That is, the teacher plays the traditional role of a controller and tells the students what actions to do, using imperatives, while students respond to commands correctly. When they are able to do this very well, they can start themselves giving instructions to their classmates, but the production of commands is delayed until they feel confident.

Designed by James Asher, Total physical response begins with the listening comprehension activities and then continues with speaking, reading and writing skills. The teacher tries to use novel or amusing commands, including games and skits, in order to activate the students. They act out the commands which means that they understand the instructions. As in the case of the former methods dealt with, Total physical response is also focused on creating activities and learning experiences which are enjoyable and less stressful.

In point of interaction, the teacher is the one that initiates interacting, either with individual students or with the group, while the students respond nonverbally and then the process happens the other way round, the students initiate thee commands to teacher or to each other.

The proposer of this method, wanted to help teachers build enjoyable experiences, stimulating feeling of trust and success by allowing the students to speak when they feel prepared to do it, avoiding the anxiety of being forced to do the things, when they are not ready. The mother tongue is used at the beginning but rarely later on because the meaning is clarified using actions.

In point of evaluation, the teacher observes the actions of the students, the response they give to the teacher’s commands, while the errors are corrected only when they are to major but without being too obtrusive.

As Krashen (1981) in Trantescu & Murar (2016:18) states, Total Physical Response (TPR) is based on listening and doing the actions asked by the teacher, leading them from simple command to more difficult ones, as time goes by and students develop their listening skills. Moreover anxiety is avoided by allowing the students to express themselves when they are prepared, this is a stage when they are the ones giving command, and their colleagues are performing the actions. Theorists sustain that even though the content may not always be interesting for the students, it is a better method, than grammar-translation or audiolingualism.

2.2.8. Cognitivism

Based on the cognitive psychology and on the Chomskyan linguistics, the cognitive approach was created as a reaction to the behaviorist characteristics of the audiolingualism. As Neisser (1967) states, that learners cannot learn languages or mathematics, which are seen as complex systems, through habit formation but acquisition of rules and structures, which can then be developed and applied to new situations of communication or problems. Moreover, Chomsky (1959,1965) states that language acquisition is seen as the learning of a system of unlimited rules, which can be extended, by learning rules, meaningful exposure of the students and not habit formation.

The Chomskyan revolution, as Trantescu & Murar (2016 : 25) state, discredits the development of linguistic competence via the stimulus-response-reinforcement cycle as creativity is part of this process: speakers are able to generate an infinite number of novel sentences (performance, i.e. actual use of the language) starting from a finite number of rules that they have internalized (competence, i.e. knowledge about the language system). Moreover he advocates the existence of universal grammar, i.e. of mental blueprints or a mindset specific to human beings (innate competence as opposed to skill-based behaviorism). Language competence is somehow idealized, being linked to nativeness and perfect knowledge of the language.

Concerning teaching grammar, it is seen as very important, and it is taught either deductively, from rules to practice or inductively, practice is first and it is then followed by stating rules or it can be left for them to process.

Errors are not stressed, they are seen as part of the learning process and they are used constructively. Moreover, it is thought that perfection is not possible, which means that the importance of pronunciation is reduced.

M.C. Murcia, D. Brinton & M.A. Snow (2014: 7) state that the cognitive approach reemphasizes the importance of teaching vocabulary, especially for the intermediate and advanced levels and also reading and writing are again brought into the foreground of the teaching process, together with the listening and speaking skills. Concerning the teacher, he is expected to be proficient in the language taught and to be able to analyse the language taught, while the students are responsible for their learning.

2.2.9 The reform movement

According M.C. Murcia, D. Brinton & M.A. Snow (2014: 5), during the period in which the direct method was popular in Europe, linguists such as Henry Sweet, Wilhelm Vietor and Paul Passy created and developed the International Phonetic Alphabet, which is a system meant to explain and represent the sounds of any language, system which became an important component in the reform movement in language teaching in the 1890s.

The contribution of the phoneticians above mentioned was seen in the language teaching area and it was supported by principles such as the following, brought into discussion by the authors mentioned above:

The primacy of the spoken form of the language;

The findings in the phonology domain should be used in the language teaching process;

In order to develop good pronunciation habits, learners should receive some basic phonetic training;

Teachers of languages should have good phonetic training.

The reform movement was seen as a reaction to grammar translation because the developers of this movement believed that the previous method had ignored the oral skills, so it focused on phonetics and pronunciation. Even if it was not a huge turn in language teaching theories, it still had a great influence on some of the approaches that we mentioned or will mention subsequently.

2.2.10 The reading approach

Another early and mid-twentieth-century approaches, together with audiolingualism and oral – situational approach is the reading approach. This approach has been supported by the Modern Language Association of America as suitable for the teaching of language also, based on Coleman’s Report (1929). It was believed that the best expectations that one could have from language learners, were for them to be able to read the literature and philosophy written in the target language. They said that only the grammatical structures needed for reading comprehension exercises should be taught, while the vocabulary should be taught leaving from frequency and necessity and later developed.

Moreover, translation is again a frequent procedure and the mother tongue is used in presenting, discussing and checking the understanding of the reading material. In point of oral proficiency, teachers are not expected to have good oral proficiency since the only language skill emphasized is reading comprehension.

2.2.11 The oral – situational approach

Dominating the period between 1940s and 1960s, in Britain, it arose as a reaction to the lack of emphasis of the reading approach on oral skills, as Howatt (2004) states. Firth (1957) claims that it drew on the reform movement and the direct method, but it included characteristics from Firthrian linguistics and language pedagogy. It is seen as the British counterpart of the audiolingualism, but it tried to give the learners the opportunity to practice as much as possible the language to be learned, by using structures such as: “at the restaurant”, “at the chemist’s”, etc.

Even if it was based on oral skills, the oral – situational approach consisted mainly on choral repetition, pattern dialogues, memorization of dialogues and reading texts, which means it did not allow the students’ or teachers’ creativity.

Some of the most important characteristics of this approach would be:

The primacy of oral skills

Not using of the mother tongue in the classroom

The texts used were first presented orally, reading and writing skills being taught only after the oral presentation of the vocabulary and grammar needed

Grading the complexity of the grammatical structures taught, from the easiest to the most difficult ones

Trying to teach the most frequent and necessary vocabulary structures

The new grammatical and vocabulary structures were presented simultaneously in the dialogues taught

2.2.12 The affective – humanistic approach

As we explained in the examples above, most of the approaches appeared as a reaction to a previous approach, which was thought to emphasize only some language skills or to diminish the importance of some language structures. This is the case for the affective – humanistic approach, which also appeared as a reaction to the lack of affective considerations in approaches such as audiolingualism or the cognitive approach.

It’s theorists emphasized the teaching environment and the positive relationships between the teacher and the students and between the students and their colleagues. They argued that when choosing the methods and resources used, we should take into consideration the fact that learning a language is a social and also personal process. The most significant features of this approach are:

Emphasizing the feelings of the individuals and respecting them

The teaching atmosphere is more important that the methods and resources used

The importance of meaningful communication situations for the learners

Work in groups and pairs

Peer support and interaction

Learning foreign languages was seen as a self-realisation process

Teachers needed to be proficient in both target language and the students mother tongue since translation was frequently used

The role of the teacher is that of a facilitator and counselor

2.2.13 The comprehension – based approach

Theorists such as: Krashen, Terrell, Asher, Postovsky and Winitz argued that the lerning of a second language is very similar to the acquisition of the first language, that is, exposure to listening with understanding activities is of huge importance and it should always be done before production skills such as speaking or writing. The essence of this approach is the Natural Approach, created by Krashen and Terrell in 1983. We shall mention some of the most important features of this approach below:

Listening comprehension is the base for the development of all the other skills, if the conditions are good;

At the beginning, students should listen and respond nonverbally to meaningful speech and then practice the productive skills;

In order to speak better and gain a better pronunciation, students should speak only when they feel, they are ready to do it;

Proficiency is acquired only when exposed to meaningful input;

Learning rules can be a step for the students to grow aware of the structures they learn, but it will not help them be proficient in the target language;

Correcting errors is not helpful, the main goal is for the learners to be able to express themselves and make themselves understood;

Teachers who are not native speakers of the target language, should use audiovisual resources in order to give the students the opportunity to be exposed to appropriate input.

2.2.14 The communicative approach

According to Harmer (2015:57), the communicative approach or the communicative language teaching, as it was later named, is one of the best known, and the approach that most of the teachers would claim they use in their classes, but there are some problems defining this approach, since it is differently understood and perceived, it is more like a family of approaches, which are sometimes arguing about things. The communicative approach turned from the structure of a language to it functions, better said, what it is used for.

The communicative teacher taught students how to apologize, how to agree or disagree, how to invite people, together with grammatical structures that were necessary. Moreover, as M.C. Murcia, D. Brinton & M.A. Snow (2014: 8) state, this approach is like an umbrella term for a large number of methods and procedures used, such as: task-based language teaching, project work, Cooperative Learning (Kagan, 1994), contend based approach or philosophies like teaching unplugged.

However, there are some frequent activities a communicative class, such as projects, games, role-plays, interviews, simulations, creative activities, language exchange, plays, pair-working, surveys, but they are all based on creativity, spontaneity, improvisation, real-life situations of communication, rehearsal of such situations and not only drills.

We shall present below, some of the most important characteristics of this approach:

The main goal is for the students to be able to communicate in the target language;

Using language for social purposes, which are as important as the language structures;

The content can be job-related or even academic;

The learners usually work in groups or pairs and negotiate to gather information: for example, one student has part of the information and the other students has the other part of the information, and they have to communicate, to ask and answer in order to gather the missing information;

Students act in role-plays in order to use the language in different social contexts:

One important element is to use authentic materials and tasks, avoiding materials artificially constructed for pedagogical purposes;

All four skills are used from the beginning;

Teachers should pay attention to the materials used, in order to be motivating, that is, avoiding old-fashioned texts or things. They should use authentic texts related to their own lives, such as: newspaper or magazine articles, recipes, blog articles, poems, videos, TV debates, news bulletins or weather forecast, etc.

The teacher’s role is that of a facilitator, he facilitates communicative situations or activities , while students are actively engaged and they communicate trying to negotiate meaning;

The teacher should use the language taught fluently;

The textbook should not make the teachers feel restricted, they can be creative and use it in a more communicative way;

Grammar structures are still taught as communication is also based on grammar structures, but it is taught in a more creative, innovative way;

Using visual resources, such as flashcards and overhead projector, which are motivating and they are used in three stages: presentation, assimilation and reproducing language, as Trantescu & Murar (2016:32) claim.

Motivation is emphasized, being developed through meaningful activities, cooperative situations of communication, etc;

Culture is also an important aspect, as Vilceanu states in Trantescu & Murar (2016:33), English language teachers should show not only willingness but also readiness to interculturalise English language teaching.

The mother tongue is not used;

Evaluation is assured informally through teacher’s advice and formally by integrative tests, with a real communicative function;

Communicative activities are totally opposite to the traditional ones. They are based on real-life situations of communication, simulating them, and avoiding repetition, teaching grammar explicitly or fixed drills. The communicative teacher will not interrupt the communicative activities and will not give fixed language or phrases to be used. As Harmer (2015:58) claims, the students now have a purpose to focus on the content and use a variety of language because they either need to communicate something or they have to fill in some missing information for example.

The communicative approach has one major goal, and that is developing the learners ‘communication competence’, which is represented by Mukalel (1998) in an ‘inverted pyramid’. That is, the communication competence consists of other four major competences, such as: cultural competence, grammatical competence, strategical competence and discourse competence (Murcia, 2001). According to Murcia, all these competences are interrelated and the development of one leads to the development of the others to, which produces a development in overall communication competence.

Better said, the more the learners are exposed to meaningful practice of communicative tasks, the more they gain experience and develop their communicative competence.

We shall explain the components of the communication competence in two figures below:

.

Representation of Communicative Competence, adapted from the source

The communicative competence, as we mentioned above consists of four major components which allow the learners to develop their communicative competence, better said, it allows them to gather experience in using the language in situations of communication very similar to those in the real life, and each of these components once developed, it increases the development of the communicative competence altogether. The components of the communicative competence are represented in the scheme below:

Communicative competence – its four major components

Although the majority of the teachers if interviewed will probably answer that they teach languages in a communicative way, there are still lots of strict tasks, such as tests, because when we talk about the tests, the majority are still created assessing individual language terms, using discrete language items without emphasizing the communicative items, such as information-gap activities, which allow students to communicate and negotiate to find answers.

However, nowadays things are still changing, the textbooks are being more attractive, more motivating, the authors are trying to use authentic texts and more and more communicative tasks, which give the students the opportunity to use language in situations which simulate real life dialogues. Another important aspect, that we can find in recently published textbooks is that the functions of language are becoming more and more important, and there are lots of activities in the books, asking students to communicate in order to find answers. Even the exams and the tests given, are in a continuous process of changing and the fact that there is desire to change and become more and more oriented to communication is a positive aspect of language teaching.

Harmer (2015:58) claims that traditional teaching procedures and communicative activities are at opposite poles of the ‘communication continuum’, as we shall represent in the figure bellow:

Non – communicative tasks Communicative tasks

Fig. 1 The communication continuum

2.2.15 Teaching ‘unplugged’

This approach was based on the manifesto of the Dogme 95 Film-makers’ Collective, started by the Danish director Lars von Trier, who wanted to save the cinema from the expensive way of making films, used by Hollywood film industry, without using artificial lighting for example, or special effects. As Harmer (2015:59) claims, Scott Thornbury was inspired to write an article in which he launched the ides that this should also happen in the English Language Teaching approaches, suggesting that teachers should not base their activities, so much, on technology but return to materials. As Meddings and Thornbury (2009) in Harmer (2015:59) claim, teachers need to focus more on the learners and the input, the content that is relevant to them, in other words the here-and-now principle.

Here are some of the most relevant features of the Dogme ELT, as they named it:

Tasks should be conversation-driven, better said, there has to be lots of interaction in the classroom, not only between students but also between students and the teacher, who has to capitalise on the chances available;

Teachers should not rely to much on resources, such as technology or textbooks, but they should focus on their students needs and interests instead;

The teachers role is to help their students to communicate, to express their opinions better, to interact with the students and to capitalise on the chances available;

There is freedom in choosing the language taught, the teachers having to used the learners’ language and consider the errors part of the learning process;

However, there has been argued that there are features of the Dogme that were worrying, such as:

Using a syllabus based view of grammar and vocabulary taught is something important and even valued by most of the teachers and students, because there are lots of situations when they need to use texts or even the dialogues or tasks which are easily to find in the coursebooks;

The difficulty to manage large classes;

The dialogic model suggested could be more suitable for teachers who are native-speakers of the target language;

Teaching cannot be done only by talking;

These being said, there are lots of moments when the teachers could use the principles of the Dogme in their classes, because they allow the teachers to make the learners grow aware of the language features they come to, during classes, and practise them however the teachers think it is more appropriate.

2.2.16 Task – based learning

As Nunan (2014) in Harmer (2015:60) claim, the Task – based learning or TBL as it is used, is the realisation of the philosophy of the Communicative Language Teaching, that is the CLT addresses the question why?, while the TBL answers the question how?

What it wants to say is that if the tasks are meaningful, then the learners, as they are focused on completing the tasks, will learn the language in the same way they would learn it, if focused on language forms.

The approach is based on three basic stages, as it is represented in the figure below:

Fig. 1 The Willis Task-based learning framework (Willis 2012: e-book)

In a TBL class, students will not receive any indications or explanations on the language used until the first step, the pre – task, finishes and that is the moment when the teacher discusses the language structures used, makes the corrections or gives further explanations for the topics where the students have most of the problems, during the pre-task.

The pre-task, as Harmer (2015:61) claims, is the stage when the teacher explores the topic with the students, supports them to understand the task and may even explain some useful words, he may even use a recording of somebody else doing the task and have the students listen to it.

The task cycle stage is the part when the learners work in pairs or small groups, without the help of the teacher, who only monitors them working. Then the learners prepare a plan on how to report what they did and how it was, either orally or in writing. They can even compare what they did with other students’ work.

In the language focus stage, the learners analyse and talk about the characteristics of the listening or reading material they have used during the other two stages. As an alternative the teacher is the one that may lead some practise on the language structures used or make any necessary corrections.

David Nunan in Harmer (2015: 61), brings a rather different structure of the stages. That is, after the pre-task stage, he proposes a controlled language practice for the vocabulary needed for the task.

Chapter 3

Research methodology and study

3.1 Context of the study

Even though the Communicative approach is on every teacher’s lips nowadays, it has been argued whether it is better to use a traditional approach in teaching grammar, such as the Grammar translation method or whether it is better to teach it in an integrated way with the others skills involved, using the Communicative approach.

The National Curriculum in Romania for the secondary school students nowadays has undergone great changes in order to turn students from passive elements in the teaching process to active ones, integrating them in the activities and trying to make them interact with other students and even with the teacher. However, the Curriculum is still changing and there are only a few years of study who are using the modern curricula, and those are the primary years of study and the fifth ans sixth classes.

Moreover, even though the curriculum is oriented on the competences rather than on the contents of language learning, teachers are still using the Grammar translation or even other traditional methods, when teaching grammar, because they fill that this is the best way for understanding the grammatical structures taught and maybe even the quickest one, since it does not need lots of time.

Using Grammar translation when teaching grammar is easier for the students indeed to learn the rules and maybe even solve traditional exercises but this does not allow them to use them fluently and appropriately in real-life situations of communication. They cannot use the language fluently and freely since grammar translation involves a lot of teacher talking, while the students are passively listening or taking notes. They are not involved in role-plays or free dialogues, in order to develop their communicative competence, so they are not able to speak the language they learn, even though they master the grammar of that language. There is lack of communication opportunity in such classes, since the main type of activity used is translating from the target language to the mother tongue and vice versa, correcting errors or gap filling exercises, which does not allow them to practice and develop their communicative competence.

Another problem that arises is that the main learning technique used by the students is memorisation of the rules dictated by the teacher, which is highly demotivating and does not allow them to build their self confidence and it does not get them interested, better said it is discouraging and it might even make them be frightened by the language learning or the grammar of that language. What we want to highlight is that the learners need to be active, to develop their conversational skills, in order to allow them to get involved in discussions, debates, negotiation, presentations, etc.

That is why, we believe it is important to look at other variants in ELT methodology in order to help the students acquire the grammar of the target language while doing things, interacting with other students or with the teacher, practicing all the four skills: reading, listening, writing and speaking. The Communicative approach does not imply forgetting about grammar, but it suggests us to teach the grammar of the language in a cooperative way, activating the students and get them involved in all the activities proposed, get them talk and use the structures learned in their own sentences.

3.2 Hypothesis

3.2.1 If taught with the Communicative approach, grammar structures, such as the passive voice, can be better understood and easier to be used in daily activities of communication, by the students, rather than being taught with the Grammar translation method.

3.2.2 Teaching grammar using Grammar translation might be more efficient in learning the rules of forming and using the passive voice, but it will be more difficult for the students to use it in their own sentences.

3.3 Objectives of the study

There are three main objectives of this study, and these are:

3.3.1 To discover whether the Communicative approach is more efficient in teaching grammar structures, such as the passive voice;

3.3.2 To investigate the impact the two ELT approaches have on the secondary students and which one is preferred by them;

3.3.3 To find out whether there are any significant differences in the students’ competence of using the passive voice in their own situations of communication after Grammar translation and the Communicative approach.

3.4 The purpose of the study

The present study aims at proposing a shift in the ELT approaches usually used by teachers, in teaching grammar structures, such as the passive voice. Even though, as we have already mentioned previously, any English teacher would say they teach in a communicative way, when it comes to grammar, the Grammar translation method is more frequently used, than the communicative one. In this respect, we investigate the effect that the communicative way of teaching the passive voice has got on the achievement of seventh grade students, compared to the effect that Grammar translation has.

For this purpose, we formulated the following questions:

What is the effect of the communicative approach on the seventh grade students when teaching the passive voice?

How efficient is the Communicative approach when teaching grammar structures?

Is the Communicative approach more useful than the Grammar translation when teaching the passive voice?

To what extent the effectiveness of the Communicative approach correlate with the seventh grade students’ level of communicative competence?

Is it better to teach the passive voice in an integrate way, rather than teach it traditionally, from rules to exercises?

Is it more efficient to have the students discover themselves the rules of using and forming the passive voice, from authentic texts or communicative exercises rather than give them rules to memorise and then apply in traditional exercises?

How important is it to use authentic texts when teaching passive voice to seventh grade students?

How efficient is activating the students in the process of learning the passive voice, in communicative activities?

3.5 The significance of the study

This analysis has been thought in order to meet the objective of ELT in Romania, which are now being more and more based on developing the communicative competence of the students, not only to acquire the grammatical rules of the language. Therefore, using the communicative approach, when teaching grammar structures, such as the passive voice, may overcome the obstacles that the students usually face, when exposed to traditional methods of teaching, such as the Grammar translation method.

What we intend is to analyse the influence of the communicative approach on developing the students ability to use the passive voice in communicative activities, consciously, not only to reproduce structures already memorised.

Moreover, the study is significant because it intends to discover ways of improving the seventh grade students’ fluency and to develop purposeful activities of interaction between the students, using communicative strategies and techniques.

Another important aspect is that the students are expected to reflect upon their own language learning, since they are encouraged to analyse the activities, the impact they have on their language learning, the positive and negative aspects they may find and also the activities they think are the most useful in the development of their communicative competence.

We believe that making them aware of their own learning is an important step in the development of their reflective ability, thus improving their learning methods and techniques.

On the other hand, this study is also significant because it is based on developing the students communicative competence, when teaching grammar, teaching grammar in in integrative way and also to help the students become responsible learners, who will be able to negotiate meaning and will be able to get involved in communicative situations, using the grammar structures learned.

3.6. Limitations of the study

This analysis is limited to the seventh grade students of the Secondary School of Mologești in the school year 2018-2019.

The duration of the experiment that we had on the students, was limited to 4 weeks, which means that a longer or a shorter study might have different findings.

Moreover, the findings of this experiment can be generalised only to similar situations, any difference might endure different outcomes.

Another important aspect is that the study is limited to the usage of the Grammar translation method and the communicative approach, when teaching the passive voice, in developing their communicative competence and in acquiring abilities to express themselves, when examining the meaning of some sentences in some contexts.

3.7 Definition of terms

The communicative approach is based on helping the students to be capable of using the language learned in the classroom, in everyday situations of communication, to get them involved in the learning process, to put them in the centre of the learning process, to help them learn consciously, understanding the meaning of the structures learned in order to be able to use them later in situations of communication. It is a method which creates a shift in the procedures used in the ELT classes, turning the students active and the teachers passive.

Teaching passive voice in a communicative way is meant to facilitate the usage of the grammatical structures studied in daily situations of communication, to help them understand the structures learned and to use them in their own sentences.

The aim of developing the students communicative competence cannot be achieved using traditional methods such as the Grammatical Translation, which is based on the translation of texts from the target language to the mother tongue and vice versa, because it does not allow the students to be creative and use the structures learned in their own conversations or writing. It does not allow them to use the language structures in an integrated way,together with the four skills involved, in meaningful activities, which can allow the students to be able to use the language in their real life also.

Scholars such as Nunan (2003: 3), claim that the application of the linguistic competence in a communicative situation of communication needs recalling the previously learned structures and it is also influences by other personal factors such as: psychological state, stress and even group dynamics.

Moreover, Sauvignon (2002:7), states that when planning for a curriculum, we should be aware of the importance of the communicative learning activities and for that we should organize them into five components of the communicative approach: language for a purpose, language analysis, personal English language use, beyond the classroom and theatre arts.

That is, learning a language for a purpose is referred to using the language for the students immediate needs of communication, related to their real world, for example learning English for tourism, for a job or even for studying abroad, educational scholarships, etc. Then, language analysis refers to the forms of English, such as syntax, phonology and morphology and understanding these components of the language, using them in meaningful activities.

The third component, personal English language use focuses on the learners motivation, teachers should grow aware of the positive impact that motivation has on the development of the students communicative competence. The next component, brings into the foreground playing roles, acting, which allow the students to use the language learned in situations of communication similar to the ones the meets in their real life.

The fifth element, theatre act, refers to the analysis of the works of art in order to learn about culture while learning English. It allows the students to be exposed to quality input.

Furthermore, she claims that developing the students communicative competence cannot be achieved independent to the form of language and the willingness of the students to cooperate in negotiating meaning.

Even though we are dealing, for this research, with the passive voice, thus grammar, it has been demonstrated that successful communication involves control over grammar, besides the skills of speaking or writing.

Emphasis in using the CLT approach is on the need for meaningful communication to support learning the language and more than that, it also focuses on the students needs.

More than that, studies revealed that the CLT approach, with its instruments, such as: meaningful tasks, authentic materials, realistic situations of communication, interesting topics and activities, interaction, etc, have a better impact on both teachers and students, especially on the students, who are more motivated because they feel that the activities are meaningful.

Grammar translation, on the other hand, focuses on the teacher, who has the active role in the teaching-learning process, on the teacher’s explanations and not on the interaction between the students or the teacher and the students. It does not make place for creativity and critical thinking activities since it is based on rigid translation exercises, from the mother tongue to the target language, and otherwise.

Moreover, the grammatical topics dealt with, are previously explained by the teachers in the students’ mother tongue, then they are exemplified in sentences, which are then translated into the student’s mother tongue and vice versa. This approach does not allow the students to discover by themselves rules and meanings, it gives them the rules and then they are expected to learn the rules by heart and translate texts which contain the grammatical structures needed, without inferring meaning.

Since our research is based on the teaching of the passive voice in English, it could be easier for the teachers to think about the usage of the GT method, since it focuses on grammatical topics and this method allows the students to learn the rules quickly but, as we mentioned above, the main purpose, even when teaching grammar, is to develop the students’ communicative competence, which requires not only productive skills but also grammatical competence.

Furthermore, GT does not allow the students’ to be exposed to authentic materials, to get involved in the teaching and learning process, since it is usually based on short texts or on sentences rather on longer texts, which does not simulate real life situations of communication.

Accuracy is a must in a GT class and it does not give the students the opportunity to practise the skills, especially the productive ones.

3.8 Research methods and procedures

According to Taber (2013: 43), an educational research methodology guides the selection and sequencing of appropriate techniques in a study and selecting a methodology is a very important step, as it guides the research plan, which in turn determines what data is actually collected and how it is analysed.

Moreover he states that methodology is more than the research techniques and is more concrete than their paradigmatic (fundamental, philosophical) commitments, it is the strategy used for answering research questions. When thinking about methodology and techniques we have to think about the strategy and tactics used. Effective research has an overall coherent strategy, which outlines the general way that the research aims will be achieved. This will translate into a set of specific tactics that will address sub-goals that collectively build towards the overall aim  as Taber (2013: 77-78) claims.

That is, besides the methods used to collect data, methodology includes also the analysis that the researcher does, based on a theoretical perspective.

3.8.1 The Experiment

The experiment as research methodology has been used in the English Language Teaching field, over the years, in order to analyse different situations such as: the impact that some teaching methods have on the students, which are better to use when teaching skills or grammar, which are better to use, the authentic materials or previously prepared by the teacher, etc.

As Nunan (25) states, the experiments are usually used to measure the strength of relationship between the variables, which are, as their name suggests, not constant. For example researchers in the education field use the experiment to measure the relationship between a variable, which might be a teaching method, in our case Grammar Translation and the Communicative approach, and another variable such as the tests scores.

The variables are of two kinds: independent and dependent. The independent variable, as its name suggests, is the one the affects the other, that has an influence upon it, while the dependent variable is the one affected, influenced by the independent variable. In our case, the independent variables are GT and CLT, while the dependent variable consists of the tests scores.

The next step, in the experiment is to gather two groups, an experimental one and one for control, but to make the findings as appropriate as possible, it is important to select the groups randomly and to test their abilities before and after the experiment, to assure that they are the same, as English level.

After pre – testing the groups, using the same test, the teacher has to teach them using the independent variable, such as the modern methods vs the traditional ones and at the end, test them again, post-test, and compare the result, in order to see whether the modern methods had a better impact on the students’ proficiency that the traditional ones.

In our case, the study tries to find out which method is better when teaching the passive voice in English, the Grammar Translation or the Communicative approach.

In this respect, we have chosen the students from the seventh grade, from the Secondary School of Mologesti, since they were studying English as their first modern language. The class consisted of 24 students. The class was split randomly into two groups, the experimental one consisting of 12 students and the control one, consisting of other 12 students.

In order to conduct a successful study, we have prepared materials which allowed them to practice the two tenses studied at their age, that is present simple and past simple.

The study consisted of three tests: pre-test, progress test and post-test and three lessons as follows: in the first lesson we taught the present simple passive, in the second one we taught the past simple passive and in the third one we taught them both, in order to fix the knowledge taught before the final test.

All this experiment lasted for four weeks.

Instruments:

First, we used a pre-test in order to measure the achievement in the passive voice of both, the experimental group and the control group and to check whether the two groups were equivalent or not.

TEST

3. Look at the underlined verbs in the text. Can you recognize the voice and tenses used? Write bellow the verbs with your answers.

4. Complete the sentences with the Present simple passive of the verbs in brackets.

A lot happens around the world in one minute:

1 A hundred new cars are produced (produce).

2 The internet …………………………..(use) by 64 million people.

3 Twelve million text messages………………………….. (send).4 10,000 songs……………………….. (download) from the internet.

5 There is a lot of rubbish. In fact, 1.5 million kilograms of rubbish ……………………………(throw away).

5. Complete the text with the Past simple passive form of the verbs.

The history of mobile phones

The first mobile phones were very big. They 1 were used (use) on trains and planes in the 1920s. A mobile phone network 2………………………………… (introduce) in Tokyo in 1979 and other cities soon followed. The first text message 3………………………………………… (send) in Finland in 1993 and, later, mobile phones 4 ………………………………(produce) that could take photos and use the internet. In 2010, more than five billion mobile phones 5……………………………………. (own) by people around the world!

6. Active or passive? Complete the text with the correct form of the verbs.

In 1901, American inventors Wilbur and Orville Wright 1 built (build) a flying machine, but it 2 ………………………(not design) well enough. It 3 ………………………..(not fly)! ‘Man will fly, but not in our lifetime,’ Wilbur 4 ……………………..(say) sadly. The brothers 5…………………… (learn) from their mistakes, however. In 1903 some changes 6 …………………………(made) to the design and a new machine 7 …………………………(build). Wilbur 8……………………. (carry) through the air for 59 seconds in the new machine. Some photos 9 ………………………(take) of this famous moment – the flight of the world’s first plane! Today, the names of the Wright brothers 10 ……………………….(know) all around the world and thousands of people 11 …………………………….(come) to see their plane at the museum in Washington where it 12……………………….. (keep).

7. Can you see the question at the end of the text above about books? Tell me your opinion, answering the question.

The students were told that they would participate to an educational experiment for the purpose of scientific research and for the beginning a test would be applied to them, to check their previous knowledge on the passive voice.

After the test the following results have been obtained:

Experimental group:

Control group:

Marks distribution – the experimental group:

Marks distribution – the control group:

We have represented above the results that both groups obtained at the pre-tests. The pre-test has been designed with both traditional grammatical items and communicative items. It consists of a text which contains present and past simple passive examples and the students had to recognize them. Items from 4 to 6 are grammatical exercises where the students had to fill in the gaps with the present or past simple form of the verbs given in brackets, active or passive voice.

Analysing the results represented above, we have observed that the students, both from the experimental group and the control group succeeded in solving the first exercise, where they had to put some objects in the order they think they were invented and check their answers after reading the text, which means they read the text and corrected themselves. This exercise was meant to introduce them into the topic and make the test less scary.

The second exercise was meant to check whether they could recognise the present and past simple passive forms and here too we could observe that the students, most of them, from both groups, were able to do this exercise.

At the fourth and fifth exercises they had to fill in the gaps with the present and past simple passive forms of the verbs in brackets. The objective of this exercises was to check whether the students were able to use the present and past simple passive forms of the verbs in brackets correctly and after analysing the results we observed that the students had problems with the past participle form, most of them, even if they used the auxiliary TO BE correctly, they didn’t use the past participle forms of the main verbs, which tells us that they didn’t master the rules of forming the present simple and past simple at the passive voice.

The last exercise in the test, was a communicative one. It asked them to give their opinion concerning to the future of books. The main objectives for this exercise were to see if they are able to use the adequate structures when giving opinions and to see whether they are able to write a short coherent paragraph to give their opinions. This was the most difficult exercise, as we can observe from the results. The students had difficulties in writing a coherent paragraph. Most of them were able to use proper phrases such as ‘in my opinion’, ‘I think that’, but they could not form correct sentences from a grammatical point of view.

Comparing the results, we have observed that the students from both the experimental group ad the control group had problems with both the form of the passive but also with the communicative exercises, where they had to write their opinion about the future of the books in the technology era, so this means that the result that we shall have, will be relevant, since there are not big differences between the two groups.

The average of scores of the experimental group was 6.08 while the average of scores of the control group was 6.25.

After the pre-test, the passive voice was presented in two lessons, one when they studied the present simple passive and another one when they learned the past simple passive.

For the first lesson the following worksheet was used for the control group, using the independent variable Grammar translation:

Worksheet 1 – Grammar Translation

Look carefully at the following information and listen to the teacher’s instructions. Then, translate the example given into Romanian. What do you observe? Can you find any similarities and differences between the passive voice in English and the passive voice in Romanian language? Write your answers in the chart.

*the doer can be left out when some situations, for example when the doer is the personal pronoun ‚they’

2. Now, read the text bellow and find examples of passive voice sentences and translate then into Romanian, in your notebook.

3. Read the article again. Are these sentences true (T) or false (F)?

1 Louis Braille could never see. F

2 His system of writing was a completely new idea.

3 Alexander Kendrick’s invention can help people with injuries.

4 People should always have a mobile phone with them when they are caving.

5 Hibiki Kono’s invention uses machines that many people have in their homes.

6 He uses his invention to climb the walls in his bedroom.

4. Complete the following sentences with the present simple passive form of the verbs in brackets.

a) Every year, hundreds of films are made in Hollywood. (make)

b) In the USA, the President ………………………every four years. (choose)

c) You ……………………………….to my sister’s party. (invite)

d) Rice …………………………..in India. (grow)

e) The best chocolate ………………………………in Belgium. (make)

5. Read carefully the examples given in the following table. Then, translate them into the Romanian. Change your worksheet with your colleague’s and check each other’s answers, then translate the sentences back into English, in your notebooks.

Questions and short ans

6. Make questions. Then ask and answer so that they are true for you.

1 mobile phones / allow / in class?

Are mobile phones allowed in class?

2 interactive whiteboards / use / at your school?

3 English / speak / all the time in your English class?

4 your TV / switch on / all evening?

7. Change these active sentences into passive sentences. Include by + noun.

1 A hairdresser usually cuts my hair.

My hair is usually cut by a hairdresser.

2 The average teenager sends 875 text messages every month.

875 text messages …………………………………………………………..

3 A Japanese company makes those mobile phones.

Those mobile phones ………………………………………………………

4 The sun warms the water in the pool.

The water in the pool is …………………………………………………..

HOMEWORK

Match the words in A with the words in B. Then write question and answers using the present simple passive.

A. B

1. Zapotec (speak) a) in February

2. the British flag (call) b) in Mexico

3. kimonos (wear) c) in Japan

4. Leicester (pronounce) d) The Union Jack

5. the Olympic Games (hold) e) Germany

6. couscous (eat) f) in Morocco

7. Porche cars (make) g) every four years

8. Valentine cards ( send) h) “lesta”

Where is Zapotec spoken? It’s spoken in Mexico.

2.Translate the following proverbs into Romanian and memorize them. Are you familiar with them? Are they the same in your language?

 The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

 A man is known by the company he keeps.

 A fox is not taken twice in the same snare.

 Old birds are not caught with chaff.

 Never ask pardon before you are accused.

 A liar is not believed when he tells the truth.

 Advice when most needed is least heeded.

 Desires are nourished by delays.

 Forewarned is forearmed.

 Marriages are made in heaven.

 A threatened blow is seldom given.

 Danger foreseen is half avoided.

 Little thieves are hanged, but great ones escape

 What is done cannot be undone.

As we have seen in the worksheet above the exercises used followed the Grammar Translation procedure. At the beginning of the lesson the students had to listen to the teacher’s explanations about the way the passive voice is used and formed in English. All these were also presented in the table they had at exercise 1 and then they had to translate the sentences given as examples into Romanian and then find similarities and differences between the passive voice in the Romanian language and the English language. The main objective of this part of the lesson was to make them understand the rules of using and forming the passive voice by making a comparison between their mother tongue and the target language.

The reading skill was involved in the second exercise where they had to read a short text in which they had to find and translate the sentences containing the passive voice. The objective here was to recognize the passive voice in context and to translate them into their mother tongue. Observing the activity of the students we have come to the conclusion that it was easier for them to do the tasks since they were directed by the teacher and they followed the same procedure: instructions followed by translations. The third exercise asked them to decide whether some sentences about the text were true or false trying to assure ourselves that they understood the text had read and translated.

The following three exercises were created to teach the negative and interrogative forms of the present simple passive and to make the students use these forms in exercises. As usual, they also had to translate from English to Romanian and backwards.

During the lesson we have observed that the students were not very motivated by the activities since they were very predictive. That is why we have asked them to correct each other in order to make them more involved and motivated. We have come to the conclusion that the students are more motivated when they are more active in the lesson, when they have to interact with other colleagues or even with the teacher. Furthermore, we have observed that they are not very interested in rigid translation exercises, they are more interested in exercises which give them the opportunity to express their opinion or feelings.

The last exercise was the most complex since they had to transform some sentences from the active voice to the passive voice and to use the by agent. The objective here was to consolidate the rules learned concerning both the form of the verb but also the difference between the agent and the logic subject.

At the end of the lesson we have come to some conclusions such as:

– the students get bored very easily when they have to work with the same type of exercise;

– even though they are not very courageous in speaking English they do want to express themselves and have this opportunity;

– they like to compare the information they find in a text with their own experience and Grammar translation does not give them such an opportunity;

– they learn the rules easily when taught in GT way;

– they are attracted by visual materials and they like to interact with their colleagues;

The homework they had was thought to help them consolidate the knowledge learned and for that they had to make questions and answers using the present simple passive and then they had to translate and memorise the proverbs given. In order to make the exercise more attractive they had to think about their Romanian counterparts.

WORKSHEET 2 – GRAMMAR TRANSLATION

Listen to your teacher’s explanations and then look at the information bellow.

PASSIVE VOICE – PAST TENSE SIMPLE

Affirmative: Negative:

Negative

It was made by Ella. It wasn’t made by Ella.

They were bought yesterday. The instructions weren’t included in the box.

Questions and short answers:

Questions

Was it made from a tin can?

Yes, it was./No, it wasn’t.

Were the instructions included?

Yes, they were./No, they weren’t.

Translate the sentences above into Romanian and underline the passive verb.

Read the text bellow and underline the past simple passive forms that you can find.

Two thousand years ago ancient Greek and Roman tourists visited some of the world's greatest landmarks. Lists of amazing things that travellers should see were written by various authors in guidebooks. The seven most commonly listed are called the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. One of the seven wonders, the Great Pyramid of Giza, is the only wonder that can still be seen today. The rest have all vanished or are in ruins. They are The Hanging Gardens, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus, the Mausoleum, the Colossus, and the Lighthouse at Pharos. Around 2600 B.C. three pyramids were built in Giza, Egypt.

They were built as tombs for three Egyptian kings. The largest pyramid stands 147 m high and was made from more than two million limestone blocks!

In 605 B.C. the Hanging Gardens were built by the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar II. He built the gardens in his kingdom and planted many exotic plants on a terrace 23 m above the ground. The plants were watered by machines worked by slaves.

The Temple of Artemis was built almost entirely out of marble. It was the largest temple in its day and was dedicated to Artemis, goddess of the moon and hunting. The temple was built by the Greeks and in 356 B.C. it burned down, leaving only a few broken statues. The great statue of Zeus, king of the Greek gods, was created by a famous Greek sculptor, Phidias. It stood 12 m high and was made out of gold and ivory.

The Mausoleum was built for Mausolus, a rich governor. It was a huge marble tomb and stood at 41 m high. Most of the mausoleum was destroyed by an earthquake.

The Colossus of Rhodes was a bronze statue of the sun god Helios and was built in 292 B.C. It stood at 37 m high and was about the same size as the Statue of Liberty in New York. Sostratos, a Greek architect, designed the world's first lighthouse. It was built on the island of Pharos, Egypt, around 304 B.C. It stood about 134 m high and a fire burned at the top, marking the entrance to the harbour.

Change the underlined sentences into the active voice and then translate them into Romanian. Swap your notebook with your colleague’s and check each other’s answers.

Read the text again and answer the following questions:

When were the three pyramids built?

Who was the king of Babylon in 605 B.C.?

Who built the temple of Artemis?

Who created the Great Statue of Zeus?

What destroyed the Mausoleum that was built for Mausolus?

How did the exotic plants in the Hanging Gardens get water?

When was the Colossus of Rhodes built?

What did Sostratos design that stood at 134 m high?

Complete the information about how the pyramids were built using the correct form of the passive.

First of all a perfect square (1) was marked (mark) in the desert sand. Then large blocks of stone (2)……………………………(move) by thousands of workers to build the first layer. Next, ramps (3)………………………….(make) to transport the stone to the next level of the pyramid. When the pyramid (4)……………………….almost……………..(finish) a block of gold (5)………………………(place) on the top.

A.

Match the phrases with the corresponding ancient buildings and then, make sentences using the past simple passive.

The Colosseum built for fresh water supplies

The Sphynx built for entertainment

An aqueduct believed it could guard the tomb of the Pharaoh

The Pyramids built as tombs for pharaohs’ and their queens

B.

Write four sentences describing how the pyramids were built, using the verbs bellow in the past simple passive form.

build move make finish place

HOMEWORK

Read the text bellow and underline the passive forms. Then translate the passive sentences into Romanian.

Read the text again and write questions and answers using the following question words.

WHEN? WHAT? WHO? WHERE?

GAME! LET’S HAVE FUN!

For the second lesson, the control group had to analyse some affirmative, negative and interrogative examples and translate the sentences, underlining the past simple passive. Before doing that, they had to listen to the teacher’s explanations and pay attention to the rules of using and forming the past simple passive.

The main objective of this part of the lesson was to understand the rules of using and forming the past simple passive. After that, the students had to read a short text and underline all the passives found in the text, in order to recognise the past simple passive.

The following activity was meant to have the students transform the underlined passive sentences into active sentences and, in order to make the activity more interesting, since we have already seen that this type of exercise was well received by the students, they had to check each other and correct the mistakes found, if any. This showed us whether they have understood the rules or not.

The text was also followed by a reading comprehension exercise, for which they had they had to answer some questions in order to demonstrate that they have understood the text. Moreover, the activity was also on a grammar basis, since in order to answer the questions, the students had to use the past simple passive and the vocabulary learned during the lesson. After that they had to put the verbs in brackets into the past simple passive, in order to check their understanding upon the rules of forming it.

Observing the students working, we have come to the conclusion that the GT method makes the activities easier for the students but what we have to analyse is if the rules are understood, or just memorised for a short period of time and also if the students are able to communicate using the grammatical structures learned, or they can simply use them in GT exercises.

At the end of the lesson the students had to do a matching exercise and then, using the vocabulary learned during the lesson and the past simple passive, they had to build sentences about the pyramids. We have seen that the students were attracted by the topic of the lesson, they were involved and the succeeded doing most of the exercises, but again, we have also seen that they do not like doing grammar exercises only.

In order to have the students involved in the topic and to make the homework more interesting they had to read a text about Tutankhamun’s tomb, find past simple passive sentences and translate them into Romanian and then ask and answer some questions about the topic, using some given question words. The objectives were to consolidate the knowledge learned, to recognise the past simple passive, to form past simple passive sentences, to ask and answer questions using the passive voice and finally to find out about culture. The third exercise from the homework was a funny one, for which they had to decode some words, written with Egyptian symbols and then write their one coded words, using their own symbols.

For the experimental group the lesson was built using the Communicative approach as we can observe from the worksheet below which contains all the exercises and activities used in the classroom.

WORKSHEET 3 – GRAMMAR TRANSLATION

Match the pictures with the words.

aluminium bag bottle box can cardboard crisp fleece glass jumper packet plastic pot rubbish yoghurt

Scan the text below and find examples of present and past simple passive voice verbs. Then translate the passive sentences into Romanian.

Read again the text above and answer the following questions.

Who was the printing press invented by?

How many books are published in the USA every year?

When did wireless telegraphy become possible?

In what year was the WWW created?

What nationality is Tim Berners-Lee?

Who created the first man-made form of phatic?

Choose a present simple passive sentence and a past simple passive sentence from the text above and turn them active. Then translate them into Romanian.

Choose from the verbs below and put them into the correct passive tense to complete the text.

buy invent make not teach print write

The earliest books (1) ___________________________ by hand. This took a long time, so very few copies (2) ______________________________. They (3) _____________________________ only by rich and important people. Ordinary people (4) _____________________________ to read. The printing press (5) _______________________________ in 1450 by Johann Gutenberg. He printed copies of the Bible. In the modern world, millions of books, magazines and newspapers (6) ______________________________ every day.

Now turn the passive voice sentences above into active and then translate them into your language. Then swap your notebooks with your desk mate and correct each others’ work.

HOMEWORK

Complete the text below with the following verbs, using the present simple passive.

collect donate give make (X2) separate not throw use wash

Ask and answer questions, about inventors and inventions, using the prompts below and the information given in the table.

Translate the answers from the exercise 2 into Romanian.

This final lesson was thought to consolidate the knowledge learned during the experiment and to review everything that had been taught until then, to assure that everything has been taught and understood before the final test, in order to have the best results.

For the first exercise, the control group had to match the words with the images, in order to help them do the following tasks of translation. After that they had to scan read the text and find examples of passive voice, either present or past simple, and translate them into Romanian and vice versa. The objectives were for them to be able to do the translation, to understand the language read and to recognize the passive voice.

After that, they had to answer some questions about the text in order to practise the usage of the passive voice and the vocabulary learned.

Then, in order to check whether they can recognize and distinguish between the present simple and past simple passive, they had to choose one sentence containing a verb at the present simple passive and another one containing the past simple passive and translate them into Romanian. The exercise was meant to help them distinguish between the to passive tenses studies, to understand the rules of using and forming the passive voice and to grow aware of the similarities and differences between the passive voice in Romanian language and the English language, and the transformations that appear when translating a phrase from a language to another one.

Comparing their attitude towards the types of exercises above, we have observed that the students are more motivated when solving exercises which involve creativity, images, student-student/teacher interaction, negotiation and they get bored easily when doing traditional, translation or filling in the gaps exercises.

At the fifth exercise, the students had to choose the appropriate verbs in order to complete a text, using the passive forms of the verbs. What we wanted to see with this task was whether they can understand the text and use the appropriate words that are missing and to check if they can use the correct passive tenses to fill in the gaps. In order to make it more motivating, the students were asked to work in pairs, then write their answers at the blackboard. When having problems, the teacher gave them instructions or explanations in their mother tongue.

The last exercise is meant to check whether they can recognize and turn the passive voice into the active voice in a correct way and then translate the sentences into the Romanian language, in order to understand all the transformation that appear.

At the end of the activity, we have come to the conclusion that the students were more motivated by interactive sentences, tasks that involve images and group work and they do not like to do lots of grammatical, direct items, without combining them with some communicative tasks. In order to exemplify better the tasks solved, we have attached the worksheet below.

After the last class, the students were again evaluated to check whether they could understand and learn all the rules of using and forming the passive voice and, more than that, we wanted to see which of the two methods was the best in learning the passive voice and develop the students’ communicative competence. Moreover, we wanted to see which of the two groups was able to use the passive voice in real life situations of communication naturally, without previous preparation.

Our experiment was meant to check our hypothesis and to see which teaching method in more efficient, because many studies have lately tried to demonstrate that the best method for teaching English is a communicative one, as we have also mentioned in chapter 2, where we have presented the theoretical background of the ESL methods. This is also something that we have tried to demonstrate, that the Communicative approach is the best method that we can use when teaching English since we do not just want to teach the grammatical rules of the passive voice but what we want is for the students to be able to use the grammatical structures in daily situations of communication.

The final test was the same for both groups, the experimental one and the control group, in order to check which of the two has achieved better the knowledge studied and is able to use the passive voice in their own situations of communication. Before explaining the objectives and the procedure used when evaluating the students for the last time we shall present below the worksheet that we used when teaching the present and past simple passive, before the final test.

WORKSHEET 1 – COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH

Read the following words and put them under two columns: Materials and Processes.

COTTON GROW MAKE DENIM HARVEST LEATHER TRANSPORT WOOD METAL HERB PACK WATER (vb.) DYE PLASTIC STEEL PAPER

Now answer the following questions:

Do you wear jeans? If yes, how often? Where?

Why do you think jeans are so popular?

What do you do with your old clothes?

A) Look at the infographic bellow. Complete the missing processes then read the article bellow and check your answers.

transport jeans make jeans water jeans add colour

Cover the text and put the following stages in the correct order. Then swap your paper with your colleague’s and check each other’s answers.

The yarn is made and coloured

The cotton is harvested

Jeans are packed and transported

Jeans are bought by people all over the world

The cotton is planted and watered

Yarn is made into denim

The jeans are made stonewashed

The cotton is taken to factory

Let’s analyse the following examples:

What tense is used in the examples above? What voice?

Tense ……………………….. Voice…………………………………….

Scan the text and find as many examples of passive voice as possible. You’ve got two minutes. When ready, come in front of the class and write them quickly on the blackboard.

Choose the correct option to complete the rules bellow:

1 We use the passive when we want to focus on the action / the person or thing doing the action.

2 We make the Present simple passive with the Present simple of have / be and the Past participle

3 With an active verb, the person or thing that does the action goes before / after the verb.

4 With a passive verb, we always / don’t always mention the person or thing that does the action.

5 With a passive verb, we introduce the person or thing that does the action with by / for.

Work in pairs and ask your colleague the following questions, about the text. Write the answers and read them aloud when finished.

Why are jeans sometimes stonewashed?

Why country sells jeans, the most?

How many pairs of jeans were there sold last year?

How much water in used to make a pair of jeans?

Give examples of two things we can do with old clothes?

Complete the text bellow with the correct form of the verbs in brackets.

Every year, 2.4 billion T-shirts…………………….(produce) around the world. First, the cotton……………..(grow) in warm countries like Brazil and India. Then it ………………(harvest). After that, it………………(clean). The clean cotton……………………(make) into yarn. The yarn……………………(colour) with dye and then it……………….(make) into T-shirts. The T-shirts………………….(print). Then they……………………(take) to shops and they………………………….(sell).

MADE OF

OR

USED FOR

Describe the object bellow using made of and used for and the passive voice.

Metal / open bottles

Leather / keep books open

Plastic / feed a baby

HOMEWORK

2. You are going to write an article about the way pasta is made. Use as examples the infographic above and the following questions:

a) Why is pasta so popular? b) Where is pasta eaten?

The experimental group had to study using a different worksheet, which was taught in order to give them the opportunity to be in the center of the teaching process, to be more active, more involved, to use the structures learned, in our case the present simple passive, in their own contexts, to express themselves, to use all the skills integrated together with grammar.

The first part of the lesson was meant to introduce them into the topic of the text and to give them the opportunity to express themselves about their personal lives, such as fashion. They were very interested in the topic and they tried to give as many answers as possible, even though they could not express themselves perfectly. Then they had to predict about the topic of the lesson and complete the stage of production of jeans on an infographic given.

Comparing the reactions of the students from the experimental group with the ones from the control group we have observed that the students were very involved in the topic and they were motivated by the images and the exercises which asked them to give opinions or to talk about their fashion taste. Although some of the students had problems in expressing their opinion fluently, they tried their best and they were very active during the activities.

The control group was also involved but when they saw that the activities were predictive they were not as interested as at the beginning.

After reading the texts given, the students had to put the stages of making jeans in the correct order, without looking at the texts and check each other. The objectives of the first part of the lesson were to give the students the vocabulary needed to use the passive voice in their own sentences, to give them the possibility to talk about their personal lives using the passive voice, to integrate all the skills in teaching the passive voice in order to develop their communicative competence and make them capable of express their ideas about a topic given.

For the following part of the lesson the students had some cubes with the words written on their worksheets, with which they had to build correct sentences and then check them using the worksheets. They worked in team and the activity was very pleasant for all the participants. Without learning the rules previously they were able to build the sentences in the end. After that they had to complete some rules about using and forming the present simple passive working in teams, monitored by the teacher.

Then they had to scan the texts given and find passive voice sentences and write them on the blackboard in no more than two minutes. The students were very active and they interacted a lot during the activity.

In order to use the passive voice in their own sentences they had to interview their colleagues and write the answers received in their notebooks and then read them aloud. The objective was to give them the opportunity to build sentences using the vocabulary learned and the present simple passive. For these activities they had to use all the skills involved in learning English, reading, speaking, listening and writing.

In order to check the understanding of the rules learned, the students had to do a gap filling exercise and then they had to describe three usually used objects, using the passive voice and the structures used for and made of. The objectives of this exercise were to use the present simple passive in their own sentences, to understand the differences between the structures used and to describe some usually used objects.

At the end of the lesson, we have come to the conclusion that the Communicative approach gives the students the opportunity to get involved in the learning process and it also helps them develop their communicative competence by using all the skills integrated.

In order to consolidate the knowledge acquired during the lesson the students had to make passive sentences about making pasta, and the stages of the process and then to write and article about the topic, using the information from the first exercise and the vocabulary given, for introducing paragraphs. The objectives for the homework were to use the present simple passive in their own structures, to write an article, to learn the vocabulary related to the topic and to learn how to write and article. In order get them more involved, they were told that they were going to present their articles in the class and get votes from their colleagues.

The second lesson was about the past simple passive. The same procedure was used for this structure too, the control group was taught using the GT and the experimental group using CA.

WORKSHEET 2 – COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH

Brainstorm as many words and phrases related to the topic ‘inventions’ as possible:

Match the following inventors with their inventions:

Alexander Graham Bell the printing press

James Watt the steam engine

Johannes Gutenberg the telephone

John Logie Baird the car

Henry Ford the television

Listen and read the text below, then match the paragraphs with the paragraph headings below.

Going global D

Starting big ……..

Entertainment value ………

Typing instructions …………

Work in pairs and answer the following questions:

What were the first computers used for?

What were the main advantages of the first computers for governments and businesses?

What were the disadvantages of the first computers?

How was the keyboard used with the early personal computers?

When were the first computer games sold?

What advantage did the first computer mouse bring?

What advantage has the Internet brought for businesses?

Why does the future of computers look exciting?

You’ve recently studied the present simple passive. Now, scan the text above quickly and find as many past simple passive examples as possible and write them in your notebook. Can you complete the rules below, now?

We make the past simple passive with the past simple form of the verb………………..and the past participle form of …………………………..

In questions the verb TO BE comes …………….. the subject.

Read the texts below and complete them with the correct form of the past simple passive. One is a hoax and the other is true. Can you tell which is which? Why?

Complete the text about an Internet hoax and use the information below and the past simple passive.

Now work in pairs and prepare similar hoax articles about any gadgets that you want, trying to make readers believe you. Present them in front of the class.

For the beginning students were involved in a brainstorming game, for which they had to write as many words related to the topic inventions as possible. This exercise focuses on cooperation and interaction, involving the students in a motivating activity, which gives them the satisfaction of succeeding in solving the task. Brainstorming is a motivating task because it gives them the opportunity to give at least one answer, even to the students who are not very competent in the field of English language. It is easy to understand, as a procedure, and it allows everybody to involve, without anxiety. The objective of this activity is to prepare them for the lesson by teaching the necessary vocabulary, in order to give them the possibility to be active and involve in the tasks prepared.

After that, the students are asked to match some inventors with their inventions and to talk about the topic with their colleagues. This was a lead-in activity, meant to grow their interest with the topic and to allow them to use the vocabulary needed, in free speaking tasks.

The brainstorming activity was followed by a listening and reading task for which they had to read the text fast and match the paragraphs with the correspondent headings. They are then asked to answer some questions in order to check the students’ ability to understand a text and to use the vocabulary learned in order to formulate the answers.

The reading comprehension tasks are meant to develop the students communicative competence, to allow them to familiarize with the passive voice in context, before teaching the rules and to learn the grammatical structure in context, as it is used in our daily life, because we do not use the language in isolated sentences, but in context.

Then, they had to work in teams, read the text about the history of computers again, and find as many passive voice examples as possible, since they had already learned the present simple passive and they could then deduce the past simple passive form. When finished they checked each others’ answers and then they had to complete the rules of forming the past simple passive, led by the examples given and the sentences they had found in the text.

Observing the students’ working we have come to the conclusion that deducing meaning and form, from some given examples, finding answers by themselves and negotiating to find answers gives them satisfaction and allows them to be more active, which gives us another reason to believe that the Communicative approach allows the students to express their thoughts freely and it also gives the teacher more freedom in using his creativity in the classroom, giving them both much more satisfaction than using a traditionalist method such as Grammar Translation. After that, the teacher presented them two texts for which they had to put the verbs in brackets into the past simple passive and then work in pairs to talk about the message of the texts and decide which of the two is real and which is a hoax.

The objectives of this exercise are to check whether the students understood the rules of forming and using the past simple passive and if they are able to use the past simple passive in the exercise given. Moreover, in order to give the students the opportunity to negotiate and interact in order to explain their choice, the reasons why they believe the text chosen is the hoax, to practise giving opinions and bringing arguments in order to support their opinions, to feel confident when talking freely, using the English language.

When solving this tasks, we have observed that the students were very active and involved in the tasks, they were motivated by the funny texts chosen and most of them tried to give their opinion and bring arguments to support their opinions. Although not all of them found it easy to express their opinions, with the teacher’s support they could express themselves. Another situation that we could observe during the activity was that the students were more interested in the message of the texts and the speaking activity that followed than in the grammar exercise with which the activity began. Thus, we can deduce that the activities involving interaction, negotiation and group or team work are preferred to the ones which are performed individually and traditionally. In order to make the previous task more meaningful, the students had the opportunity to create their own hoax article using the example from the previous exercise. The main objectives for this task were to use the passive voice and the vocabulary learned, in their own sentences, to be able to express their opinions and arguments, to develop their communicative competence, to give them the possibility to participate in meaningful situations of communication.

To consolidate the knowledge studied in the class, the students had two exercises as homework. One of them was a communicative exercise which gave them the possibility to practice more the passive voice and the vocabulary related to gadgets and the structures involved in asking and answering questions. Moreover, I order to develop the communicative competence of the students, the dialogue made by the students about the cell phone or the digital camera, and to make it be seen as meaningful by the students, they had to perform the dialogues in the classroom at the following class.

Then, the second exercise, meant to practise the past simple passive and to give the students the opportunity to develop their writing skills, had to write an article about the history of the cell phone, using some given notes. The activity is similar to real life situations of communication since we need to read and write texts about different things in our daily life, and the cell phone is a gadget used by everybody nowadays, making it an interesting topic for the students.

More than that, we have also seen that the topics used in this experiment, such as inventions, gadgets, discoveries were very well received by the students, they were interested in the topics and they wanted to find more about them.

The homework worksheet is presented below.

HOMEWORK

Read the dialogue below and the make your own dialogues about cell phones and digital cameras, using the information given. Then act the dialogues in front of the class with a colleague.

Read the notes below and write an article about the history of the cell phone, using the passive voice where possible.

WORKSHEET 3

COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH

Before reading, look at the pictures below and answer the following questions in pairs.

Where are this type of cameras used?

What are they used for?

Have you ever seen such cameras? Where?

Read the text again and answer the following questions:

How many CCTV cameras are there across the U.S.?

How was the Manhattan laptop thief identified?

Why do some people think they are a bad idea?

Who was George Orwell?

In the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four how does Big Brother monitor people?

Complete the ad below with passive forms of the verbs.

Be a reporter! Ask four of your colleagues where some of their school objects or clothes were produced or what they are made of, and take notes. Then write passive voice sentences and read them aloud.

E.g. Andreea’s schoolbag is made in/ made of ………….. .

5. Choose three passive voice sentences from the text about CCTV cameras and turn them into active voice sentences. Then swap your notebook with your front desk colleague and check each other’s answers.

6. Watch the trailer of the film 1984 and then tell me your opinion in a few words. Would you like to watch the film/ read the book? Why? Why not?

HOMEWORK

Write the questions from the quiz and choose the correct answer.

Using the ad about laptops that you’ve read make your own ad, about an invention that you believe it is indispensable to our society today and try to persuade people buy it. Think about special offers that could attract customers. You can use pictures, drawings or whatever you think it will help you persuade people buy your product.

The experimental group has also attended one more class when they consolidated the knowledge learned during the experiment, that is the present simple and past simple passive, for which we have used the same communicative approach.

At the beginning of the lesson the students had to analyze some pictures and then try to answer some questions about cameras and their own experience related to this topic. The objective of this activity is to lead in the students, into the topic of the lesson, integrating the grammar structures studied with the language skills, in order to develop the students’ communicative competence. To complete that task, the students had to interact and speak with each other about the experience they have on this topic, the information they have, they were encouraged to ask and answer about the topic, to negotiate to find new information about the usage of such devices, to share their knowledge and ask questions about the things they do not know and would like to know.

After that the students had to complete an ad with the passive voice forms of the verbs in brackets in order to practice the usage of the passive voice and to use the structure in context and to give them an example of the usage in a context similar to a real life text, such as an ad. Then, the students were involved in a reporter game. Thus, the students were asked to work in groups and ask their colleagues where their school objects, for example, or clothes or anything they might have on their desks, were made and prepare a list. Then build passive voice sentences and swap them with their colleagues in order to correct each others’ work.

Observing the students work, we have come with the conclusion that such tasks are very well received by the students, because they are motivated by team/group work, they like to talk about the tasks they work at, they like to be involved in the activity and not just sit and answer the teacher’s questions, they prefer to be active, to lead the activity themselves and receive support from the teacher, when needed. Although they cannot speak fluently, they learn to give their opinions and express their feelings, and when they speak they become more confident because they see that not all the students are fluent and this builds their self confidence.

Since children are keen on games, this activity was very well received, they liked the idea of pretending to be somebody and playing the role of a reporter.

In order to integrate the grammar structures taught during the experiment, they were asked to scan the text previously read and find quickly at least three passive voice sentences to transform into the active voice. This is meant to check the students understanding of the rules of forming the passive voice and to check whether they are able to differentiate between the grammatical subject and logic subject of the sentence.

When finished, they had to do again a peer-evaluation activity, evaluating the work of their colleagues and then sharing opinions upon the errors they could find and the reason why they thought there were still errors done and to propose some solutions for ameliorating them.

At the end of the class, the students were asked to watch the trailer of the film 1984 and then talk for a while about it. They weren’t asked to focus on the passive voice but on the debate itself, since what we wanted to obtain, was a conversation similar to real life situations of communication , in which unconsciously they integrated the passive voice learned during the experiment. The students were involved in the conversation, with a very silent teacher role, they were asked to bring arguments, pro and against, and to try to sustain their opinions with arguments.

In order to consolidate the knowledge studied before the final test, the students had to ask some questions and choose the correct answers, using the passive voice and then, in order to practice using the passive voice in real life situations of communication, the students had to prepare an ad, using the example studied during the class, about any gadget they want.

For this exercise the students needed to persuade people to buy their product using arguments and reasons why it was the best they could find. The following class, the students had to present their ad and the students had to vote the product they would buy, convinced by the ad prepared by the student.

After teaching the present and past simple passive, the students were given a progress test, in order to check whether there are any differences between the two groups, the experimental one and the control group. For that, we have prepared a progress test in which we combined both communicative and traditional types of items, in order to check their knowledge and their ability to use this into communicative situations.

The objectives of the tests were:

To check whether they use the structures correctly

To see if they are able to use the passive voice in communication

To check their ability to understand a written text and get information from it

To see if they can recognise the passive voice structures

The first exercise was meant to see if they are able to understand a text and to get information from the text. At this exercise we have come to the following: most of the students, from both the experimental and the control group were able to solve this exercise or at least a great part of it. That is, there were 10 students able to solve the entire exercise, while 2 of them could not complete the information about the base and the tower.

The second exercise was meant to check if the students are able to write their own dialogues, using some information given and the grammatical structures learned, between the tourist and the guide, using as an example the dialogue given at the first exercise. At this exercise the students from the communicative group had better results, while the control group had only six students who were able to build part of it.

The third exercise, was meant to check whether the students can make the difference between the passive and the active voice or not. This exercise was solved by most of the students, from both groups, there were 11 students from the communicative approach who were able to do the exercise correctly and 10 from the control group.

For the fourth exercise, they had to use the affirmative and negative forms of the past simple passive, to complete the given sentences. The objective of this task was to check whether they are able to use the past simple passive for both the affirmative and negative forms and to see which of the two groups understood better the rules of forming the passive voice. Here, we had 7 students who were able to solve the entire exercise, 3 who mistook the past simple form of the main verb with the past participle form, at the irregular verbs and 2 of them could only solve three sentences correctly out of eight, at the experimental group and 6 students from the control group solved the entire task correctly, five solved five sentences out of eight while one student could not solve anything.

As we can see, the results were quite close and the students from both groups had problems with the past participle forms of the verbs, meaning that they need to learned them better.

At the fifth and sixth exercises, the objectives were to check whether they could transform an active voice sentence into a passive one and vice versa and to see whether they can use the structure correctly, paying attention to the grammatical subject and the logic subject and the agent introduced by the preposition by.At these exercises we have come to the conclusion that the experimental group had better results at the sentence structure, while the students from the control group could use the forms correctly, most of them, but they had problems with the syntax.

In conclusion, the results of the two group, at the end of the test, were as following:

The experimental group had the following results:

And the results of the control group were as following:

Mark distribution – experimental group:

Mark distribution the control group:

Analysing the results, we have come to the conclusion that the experimental group had better results and, more than that, we have also observed that the experimental group had a better progress, that the control group. We shall explain that below, by comparing the previous results, the results they obtained at the pre-test with the results obtained at the progress test.

As we can see, in the figures above, there is a greater progress of the experimental group, which had a smaller average of scores at the beginning and the average raised with 1,17 while the average of scores at the beginning of the experiment was of 6,25, while after the progress test we have come to the result of 6,83, which indicates a smaller progress of 0,58.

We shall compare below the percentage of scores of the two groups, in order to see which are the differences. Thus, we shall first exemplify the percentage of scores of the experimental group and then we shall exemplify the percentage of scores of the control group.

Comparing the results exemplified above, we have come to the following:

As we can observe, the experimental group, where we used the communicative approach obtained better results at the progress test although they had smaller results at the beginning of the experiment, which makes us sustain that the Communicative approach was more efficient than the Grammar Translation method. Comparing the results we have observed that the experimental group ‘s progress is of 8%, while the progress made by the control group is of 4%. We shall present the test given below.

TEST – PROGRESS

Read the dialogue below between a tourist and a guide from New York. Complete the missing information.

Decide if the sentences are active (A) or passive (P).

Millions of people use the Internet. …….

These computer games are made in Japan. ……

I sent a lot of e-mails. ……….

A USB flash drive is used to store data. ……

This car is made in the U.S.A. ……

Luke uses his cell phone a lot. …….

A mouse is connected to a computer. ………

My dad often downloads software. ………

Complete the sentences with the affirmative (√) or negative (X) forms of the simple past passive of the verbs in the box.

Build compose design discover invent paint write

Macbeth…………………………..by Charles Dickens. (X)

Mona Lisa………………………………………..by Leonardo Da Vinci. (√)

The pyramids …………………………………..by the Romans. (X)

Radium…………………………………….by Albert Einstein. (X)

The Four Seasons concertos…………………………………….in 1723. (√)

The World Wide Web………………………………………….by Bill Gates. (X)

The Hearst Tower in New York…………………………………by Norman Foster. (√)

Rewrite the Active sentences into Passive.

My friend bought a new car.

John cleaned the bathroom.

The teacher closes the window.

The girls can play handball.

Our dog did not bite the cat.

Rewrite the Passive sentences into Active.

The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell.

This book was written by an Irishman

The president was elected by the people

The exercise is completed by the teacher.

The computer is used by Patrick.

After the progress test, the students were taught once more, both tenses at the passive voice, using the same procedure: for the experimental group we have used the Communicative approach and for the control group we have used the Grammar Translation method.

The first exercise was meant to give them self confidence and to develop their critical thinking competence. For that the reading skill was practiced and evaluated, combined with the critical thinking competence, since they were asked to read the text quickly and think about the best variant to define the term Generation Gap.

Moreover, they could also use their own experience in order to choose the best variant, from the three ones given. This was the easiest exercise, from what we have seen, since it was the only exercise that all the students could solve correctly.

The next exercise was meant to check whether they are able or not to understand a text read for the first time and to see if they are able to answer the questions correctly, using the vocabulary and grammatical structures needed.

For that there were five questions to be answered. Here the students from the experimental group had better results, especially in writing more correctly and more coherent answers. There were eight students who were able to answer all the questions, in the experimental group, 2 of them answered 4 questions out of 5 and 2 students answered only three questions out of five. The control group had weaker results at this exercise, as follows:

6 students answered correctly all the five questions, 3 of them answered 4 questions and 3 of them answered only 3 questions. What we have seen is that the students from the control group had difficulties in writing coherent answers, their answers weren’t very well constructed, while the students from the experimental group didn’t have so many problems in building their answers, they were more flexible, they din not resume to the structure of the question only, they used their own words, some of them used even synonyms.

The third exercise was meant to check the students’ knowledge upon the word order when turning a sentence from the passive voice to the active voice and to check whether they are able to recognize the passive voice in context, since they had to choose themselves a passive voice sentence and turn it into the active voice.

Most of the students were able to recognize a passive voice sentence, form both the experimental and control group, but there were students who could not turn the passive into the active voice correctly. There were 9 students from the experimental group who solved it correctly and 8 from the control group, the others had problems with the past participle form, or to recognize the logic subject of the sentence.

The fourth exercise was based on discrete items, for which they had to choose between two verb forms in order to complete the sentences. The objective of this exercise was to see if the students are able to recognize the past participle form of the verb or to differentiate between the verb forms needed. From the experimental group, 8 students were able to choose the correct variant while 4 of them had two errors and from the control group there were 6 students who chose the correct variants, 4 had 3 errors and 2 of them could not choose any correct variant.

At the fifth exercise, where they had to choose between three variants, to complete the sentences, using the passive voice, there were 7 students from the experimental group who were able to choose the correct variants while from the control group there were only 5 students who were able to choose the correct variant.

The sixth exercise was a free writing one, for which the students had to use the information from the text given at the first exercise, and to write some differences they have experienced, about the generation gap, differences between their generation and their parents or their grandparents. For this exercise the were expected to use their personal experience and the information given, in order to give their opinion concerning the topic of generation gap.

This exercise was the most difficult one, for both groups, but, what we have observed is that the experimental group had students who were able to do the exercise correctly and there were also students who, did not have the most coherent text, but the text could be understood. The control group had only three students with good texts, the others having problems to express themselves in a coherent way. This gives us the idea that the students that studied using the Grammar Translation method had problems expressing themselves and giving reasons, opinions, since they have studies using traditional types of exercises which did not give them the possibility to practice skills, especially the productive skills.

As a result the students from the two groups obtained the following results:

Final test scores – the experimental group:

Final test scores – the control group:

As we shall see in the figures below, the students from both groups obtained a higher mark, at all the tests given during the experiment, but the students from the experimental group had a greater progress that the students from the control group.

We shall illustrate below the marks distribution for both groups in order to compare the results more easily.

The average of scores for the final test, for both the experimental and the control group is compared in the figure below:

As we can see above, the students from the experimental group had better results and their marks raised more that the ones of the control group, which had many marks of 6.

As we can observe in the figure above, the experimental group, where we have used the Communicative approach was the one with the best results, after the post-test, which makes us sustain that the Communicative approach is more effective that the Grammar Translation method, even if we speak about teaching grammar. To make the comparison even clearer, we shall present below the progress made by both groups during the experiment.

As we can observe in the figure above, the students from the experimental group had weaker results at the beginning of the experiment and they had better results during the experiment and a the end of it. We shall illustrate below the percentage of scores of both groups, in order to make the comparison even clearer.

First we shall illustrate the percentage of scores for the experimental group obtained for all the tests given. As we have explained above, the experimental group had a weaker percentage at the beginning of the experiment, ad as we can observed from the figure below, the percentage at the beginning was of 28% and at the end of the experiment it is of 38%, which means that the students had a 10% progress during the experiment.

In order to compare the results of the two groups, we shall then illustrate the results of the control group.

The control group started from a 31% result and it ended the experiment with a result of 36%, which means that the progress made by the students using the Grammar Translation method was of 5%, as we can see in the figure below.

Compared to the results illustrated and explained above, we can see that the progress made by the experimental group, using the Communicative approach is bigger that the progress made by the students using the Grammar Translation method.

To assure clarity we shall illustrate the result in the same figure below.

In the figure above we can see that the best results are of the students from the experimental group. The control group has made progress too, but lower that the experimental group. We attach below the post-test, that they had to solve at the end of the experiment. FINAL TEST

Read the text quickly and choose the best variant to define the term Generation Gap: 5p

The name of a fashion store for young people

The differences between one generation and the next

A new type of digital technology for the young generation

Read the text again and answer the questions below: 20p

What „age” do today’s young people belong to?

What type of digital tools are part of their everyday lives?

How many messages does an average U.S. teenager send in one month?

What are young people sometimes called today?

What is multi-tasking?

Scan the text above and find one example of present simple passive and another one of past simple passive. Then turn the sentences into the active voice. 10p

Circle the correct word. 20p

Garden chairs are often making / made of plastic.

Garden waste is / are collected every second week in my town.

Old clothes is are collected / collecting in special stores.

The hotel rooms are cleaned / cleaning every morning.

Plastics is / are used to make a lot of different containers.

Choose the best variant to complete the text below: 20p

Paper (1) ________________________________ from wood. The fibres of wood from trees (2) _________________________________ with water until they becomes a soft wet pulp, which (3)___________________________. This method of paper-making (4) _____________________________ in the 2nd century BC in China. However, early writing material (5) ______________________________ (always) from wood. In fact, the word paper comes from papyrus plants which (6) _________________________ by the Egyptians to make a form of paper in 3,000 B.C. When machines for-paper making (7) _____________________________ in the 19th century, paper became easy to afford. Today, one of the problems with the huge production of paper is that a chemical called chlorine (8)____________________________ to make the paper white. Recycling is important, because chlorine (9) __________________________ and less energy (10) ____________________________ for recycled paper.

A. is produced B. are produced C. produced

A. is mixed B. are mixed C.am mixed

A. is dried B. are dried C. dried

A. was introduced B.is introduced C. introduced

A. was always made B. wasn’t always made C. were always made

A. was used B. is used C. were used

A. were invented B. was invented C. is invented

A. are added B. is added C. added

A. isn’t needed B. aren’t needed C. needed

A. used B. are used C. is used

Can you give examples of differences between your generation and the generation of your parents/grandparents. Give examples of such differences that you’ve experienced in no more than five lines, using the example below. 15p

e.g. When my parents/grandparents were children the Internet wasn’t invented so they…

After the teaching experiment the students had to complete a questionnaire, which was the second instruments that we used, in order to obtain reliable results for our analysis. The reason for which we used this instruments was to check their opinion on the experiment and to see which of the two approaches was the one they felt more confident with and to see what type of texts, methods and procedures are preferred by the students.

The questionnaire contained 12 questions, some of them were multiple-choice items, which tried to see what type of procedures, exercises, activities, texts, types of evaluation and interaction, the students prefer when learning English and during the English classes and also to rate the experiment, the amount of knowledge on the passive voice they achieved and the texts used during the experiment.

We shall present below the resume of the answers received during this phase of the experiment, from which we can observe the fact that the students were attracted mostly of the Communicative approach activities, they chose the activities involving communication, interaction, negotiation, creativity, pictures rather than classic type of activities such as translation and passive learning.

When asked whether they prefer authentic texts to texts previously prepared by the teacher, to match the topic studied, all the students answered that they prefer the authentic texts. Moreover, they also said they preferred to discover themselves the rules of using and forming the grammatical structures studied, to work in teams or groups rather than individually and to be involved in the activities, to play an active role in the teaching -learning process.

As a whole, they rated the experiment with marks from 8 to 10 and they appreciated it to have been interesting, motivating and useful.

Thus, analysing all the aspects found during the experiment we can observe that the Communicative approach is more motivating for the students and it gives them the possibility to develop their communicative competence as well, not only to master some grammatical structures.

Conclusions

The present paper aimed at analysing the most important theoretical aspects of the passive voice in English and the most frequently used methods and approaches in teaching English in order to demonstrate which are the most useful and efficient when teaching English, more precisely the passive voice.

Our analysis was based on the theoretical background gathered in the first two chapters and the experiment that we described in the third chapter. We started form a theoretical basis because we believe that without a solid theoretical background the study would lack profoundness and it would not be as precise as we wanted.

During the experiment which was based on two main instruments: the experiment and the observations taken during this phase and the questionnaire which was intended to check the students opinions concerning the experiment as a whole and the way of teaching and learning English.

We shall bring into discussion below the main advantages and disadvantages discovered when using the Grammar Translation method and the Communicative approach.

When using the Grammar Translation we have found a series of advantages such as:

It can be seen as easier for the students

The grammatical structures learned are easier mastered

It is easier for the teacher

It is not time consuming

As disadvantages we have found the following:

It is too rigid

The teaching process is teacher centered

The texts and materials used are not attractive and motivating

The motivation of the students is not stressed

The students receive all the information from the teacher in their mother tongue, which does not give them the possibility to think about what they learn, consciously

It does not allow creativity

The students do not develop their communicative competence, which is needed in the society nowadays

Oral skills are not practised

The students are passive and they do not feel that they are involved in their learning process

When we talk about the Communicative approach, the advantages of using it that we could discover were:

It is motivating

It is students’ centered

It is based on negotiation, interaction and peer-evaluation

The usage of authentic texts and materials is a very important aspect which allows the students to get in contact with the real language and situation of communication similar to real life ones

Teaching in an integrated way, which allows them to develop their communicative approach and to use the language learned in their own situations of communication

It is based on the teachers’ creativity

It is more flexible

All the skills are practised

The evaluation is more flexible and based also on projects or other type of methods which are not as scary as the traditional tests used

Oral skills are practised and allow the students to gain confidence and to be able to use the language learned in the classroom, outside of it, in real life situations of communication

Thus, we have come to the conclusion that our hypothesis was confirmed and the Communicative approach is more efficient than the Grammar Translation method since it allows the students to use the language learned and to prepare themselves for real life situations of communication. Even though we teach grammar, we need the students to use it in their own contexts, which is very difficult if we do not practise this inside the classroom. The students feel nervous when speaking English and they need to get confidence in order to use the language outside the classroom. It has been demonstrated that it is better to learn the language in an integrated way and to practice all the skills together because it makes the students be able to use the language.

The teacher cannot use only one approach or another one, but he should better combine the methods according to the situation they are facing and to take into consideration lots of aspects that are involved in the teaching process, such as: the students’ needs, the students’ level of competence, the motivation of the students, the time, the structures needed and the structures to be taught, the society, because, as we mentioned earlier, nowadays thanks to the globalisation process that we are facing, we need to master foreign languages for real life situations of communication, not only to read the literature of a country.

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Harmer, J. 2015. The Practice of English Language Teaching. The Fifth Edition. London: Longman.

Hewings, M. 2005. Advanced Grammar in Use. Second Edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Krashen, St. 1981. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning, Pergamon.

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Mitchell, R. 1994. The Communicative Approach to Language Teaching. An Introduction, London: Routledge.

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Murar I. 2005. English Verb. Craiova : Editura Universitaria

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19th March 2019, 22:27, https://www.englischhilfen.de/en/download/test_passive1_en.pdf

Margarita Goded Rambaud : Basic Semantics, p. 146, 29th March 2019, 18:37, pdf

21st March 2019, 22:05 https://en.islcollective.com/resources/printables/worksheets_doc_docx/passive_-_inventors_and_inventions/passive-voice-or/78629

16th of March 2019, 09:23 pm., https://busyteacher.org/8846-seven-wonders-of-the-world-part1-the-pyramids-of.html

16th March 2019, 04:19 pm.: http://englishstandarts.blogspot.com/2012/06/passive-voice-texts-proverbs-and.html

Appendices

LESSON PLAN

DATE: 04.03.2019

TEACHER: Dabija Mihaela Irina

SCHOOL OF MOLOGESTI

GRADE: 7th

NUMBER OF STUDENTS: 24

LESSON: Evaluation

LEVEL: Pre- intermediate

TYPE OF LESSON: Progress Test

TIMING: 50 minutes

METHODS: test, conversation, explanation

MATERIALS: test paper

AIMS:

To check whether they use the structures correctly

To see if they are able to use the passive voice in communication

To check their ability to understand a written text and get information from it

To see if they can recognise the passive voice structures

SKILLS: listening, speaking, reading and writing.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Learning Teaching by Jeremy Scrivener, second edition, Macmillan;

The Practice of English Language Teaching by Jeremy Harmer, third edition, Longman.

Activity :

T greets the S and explains them the exercises they have to solve and tells them to ask questions any time they think there are situations that they cannot understand.

T gives them the tests and clarifies all the potential problems they may have with the items given.

Rating scale – the progress test

Exercise 1.

5×2=10p

Name: Hearst Tower

Base: stone

Tower: glass and steel

Designed by: The famous British architect Norman Foster(it is considered to be correct either to write the name or the complete structure)

High: 180 m tall

Exercise 2. 15p

Relevant and fully adequate response to the task. -5p

All 6 key points required in the task included and expanded appropriately. -5p

Achieves desired communicative effect on target reader-5p

Partially successful response to the task. -4p

One or two key points inadequately covered or omitted, and/or some irrelevant material included. -4p

May fail to communicate clearly to target reader and/or achieve the desired effect.-4p

Limited response to the task.- 2p.

More than 2 key points omitted and/or considerable irrelevance/repetition, possibly due to misinterpretation of the task. -2p

Fails to achieve the desired effect because considerable effort will be required of the reader-2p

Too little language to form judgement-0p

Exercise 3.

8×2=16p

A

P

A

P

P

A

P

A

Exercise 4.

7×3=21p

wasn’t written, was painted, weren’t built, wasn’t discovered, were composed, wasn’t invented, was designed

Exercise 5.

5×2=10p

A new car was bought by my friend.

The bathroom was cleaned by John.

The window is closed by the teacher.

Handball can be played by girls.

The cat wasn’t bitten by our dog.

Exercise 6.

6×3=18p

Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.

An Irishman wrote this book.

People elected the president.

The teacher completes the exercise.

The children play football.

Patrick uses the computer.

10 pointe granted

10p + 15p + 16p + 21p + 10p + 18p + 10 = 100p

Specifications matrix – the progress test

LESSON PLAN

DATE: 18.03.2019

TEACHER: Dabija Mihaela Irina

SCHOOL OF MOLOGESTI

GRADE: 7th

NUMBER OF STUDENTS: 24

LESSON: The Passive Voice – Present Simple

LEVEL: Pre-intermediate

TYPE OF LESSON: teaching new grammatical structures

TIMING: 50 minutes

METHODS: Grammar Translation, explanation, exercise

MATERIALS: worksheet, board

AIMS: By the end of the activity the students will be able:

– to get the students involved in the topic;

– to develop students’ listening skills;

– to develop students’ writing skills;

– to learn the present simple passive:

– expose students to new vocabulary and expressions and translate the new vocabulary

– to understand and practise using the grammar structures studied.

ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS: S may have problems understanding the rules of using the present simple passive, because it is a difficult structure for them, that is why I have decided to prepare for them a table with the rules of forming and using it, in order to use it when they have to solve their tasks, besides the oral instructions that I give.

SKILLS: listening, reading, writing.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Learning Teaching by Jeremy Scrivener, second edition, Macmillan;

The Practice of English Language Teaching by Jeremy Harmer, third edition, Longman.

Johnson, O. 2013 Motivate 3 – Workbook, London: Macmillan Publishers Limited;

Johnson, O. 2013 Motivate 3 – Student’s Book, London: Macmillan Publishers Limited;

Wildman J.,Barraclough C. and T., Foster J. 2013 Next Move 3, Harlow: Pearson Publishers Limited;

16th March 2019, 04:19 pm.: http://englishstandarts.blogspot.com/2012/06/passive-voice-texts-proverbs-and.html

www.havefunteaching.com; google.com images

T greets S and checks their homework.

Activity 1: Warming up: 5’

T asks them to look carefully at the following information and listen to the teacher’s instructions, then, translate the example given into Romanian. Then they are asked if they can find any similarities and differences between the passive voice in English and the passive voice in Romanian language.

Activity 2: Lead in: 10’

Pre-reading

Then the T asks them to read the text on their worksheet and find examples of passive voice sentences and translate then into Romanian, in their notebook.

Activity 3: Reading 10’

The T asks them to read again the text, more carefully and to decide whether the qsentences given are true or false.

Activity 4: 15’

Practice

Then, the students are asked to complete some sentences with the present simple passive form of the verbs given in brackets

Then, they are asked to read carefully the examples given in the table and translate them into Romanian.

In order to make things more interesting, and avoid boredom they are asked to change their worksheet with their colleagues and check each others answers, then translate the sentences back into English, in their notebooks.

Activity 6: Feedback: 8’

To assure feedback, T asks the students to make questions using the prompts given and then answer the questions, so they are true for them. Then, they have to turn some sentences into passive sentences, including the by-phrase.

Homework: 2’

As homework, they have to solve two exercises. One of them is meant to check whether they can use the present simple passive, since they have to write questions and answers, using

some facts given and the second exercise asks them to translate some English proverbs into Romanian and tell if they are familiar with them.

LESSON PLAN

DATE: 19.03.2019

TEACHER: Dabija Mihaela Irina

SCHOOL OF MOLOGESTI

GRADE: 7th

NUMBER OF STUDENTS: 24

LESSON: The Passive Voice – Present Simple

LEVEL: Pre-intermediate

TYPE OF LESSON: teaching new grammatical structures

TIMING: 50 minutes

METHODS: The Communicative Approach, conversation, brainstorming, role-play, peer-evaluation.

MATERIALS: worksheet, board, projector, laptop.

AIMS: By the end of the activity the students will be able:

– to get the students involved in the topic;

– to develop students’ speaking skills;

– to develop students’ writing skills;

– to learn the present simple passive;

– to expose students to new vocabulary and expressions and use the new vocabulary in their own contexts;

– to be able to talk freely about the topic;

– to understand and practise using the grammar structures studied.

ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS: S may have problems understanding the rules of using the present simple passive, because it is a difficult structure for them, and also with the vocabulary involved, that is why I have decided to start the lesson with some key words, denoting materials and processes. Moreover, since it might be difficult for them to get

involved in the topic and start talking about the subject, we shall start the lesson with some easy opinion giving questions, which are meant especially to remove stress.

SKILLS: speaking, listening, writing, reading.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Learning Teaching by Jeremy Scrivener, second edition, Macmillan;

The Practice of English Language Teaching by Jeremy Harmer, third edition, Longman.

Google –images

T greets S and checks their homework.

Activity 1: Warming up: 5’

T asks them to look carefully at the words given and put them under two columns: Materials and Processes. In order to facilitate collaboration between the students, they work in pairs.

Activity 2: Lead in: 5’

Then the T asks them to answer some question, giving their opinion about clothes, especially jeans. They are encouraged to speak as much as possible, to talk about their preferences, to asks some colleagues about their own.

Activity 3: Pre – reading 5’

The students have to look at an infographic and complete the missing processes.

Activity 4: Reading 5’

Then they have to read the text and check their answers, then talk a bit about their findings.

Activity 5: Post – reading 5’

They are asked to cover the text and put the stages in the correct order.

To facilitate interaction during the activity, they are encouraged to evaluate each others’ work. Activity 6: Practice: 10’

They are analysing some examples and them they have to complete the rules of using and forming the present simple passive. The activity is organised interactively, they have then to scan the text for more passive voice examples and share them with their colleagues. During the activities, they are encouraged to talk to each other, to share opinions, to check themselves and other students’ answers.

Activity 7: Feedback 13’

To check their understanding, they are asked to work in pairs and answer some questions about the text studied, using the active or passive voice. Then, they have to fill in a text with the correct form of the verbs in brackets. When finished, they share their answers with the class and talk about their answers.

After that, the students have to talk freely about three objects, using the prompts given and the passive voice.

Homework: 2’

As homework, they have to solve two exercises. One of them is a matching ans writing exercise for which they have to match the stages of doing pasta and write about them, using the passive voice. After that, they have to write an article about the way pasta is made and prepare it for the following class, when they will have to present it orally.

Questionnaire answers resume