Help with lesson plan.

[TonFierAmi]

Hi! My name is Roger. I'm currently studying to become an English teacher in Mexico, but last week when I turned in my lesson plans to be evaluated, my teacher returned them to me saying that this expression was incorrect, "The students will be given a piece of paper to make a poster." Is it? She argued that I wasn't using the passive voice correctly. Aren't I?

[BobK]

Originally Posted by TonFierAmi

Hi! My name is Roger. I'm currently studying to become an English teacher in Mexico, but last week when I turned in my lesson plans to be evaluated, my teacher returned them to me saying that this expression was incorrect, "The students will be given a piece of paper to make a poster." Is it? She argued that I wasn't using the passive voice correctly. Aren't I?

I think she was being unnecessarily picky. There are two possible objections to your sentence:

1 The infinitive isn't marked to person in English (or in any other language I know of - except Portuguese [of which I'm an ardent fan]. So you 'should have said': 'The students will be given a piece of paper so that they can make a poster.'

2 (More likely) The plan should - in the view of your teacher - have specified subjects for active verbs: 'I will give the students a piece of paper so that they can make a poster.'

I called these 'possible objections'; the sentence as it stands seems quite acceptable to me though. If the teacher prefers you to use the active voice in your plans, she should have said so.

b

[MikeNewYork]

Originally Posted by TonFierAmi

Hi! My name is Roger. I'm currently studying to become an English teacher in Mexico, but last week when I turned in my lesson plans to be evaluated, my teacher returned them to me saying that this expression was incorrect, "The students will be given a piece of paper to make a poster." Is it? She argued that I wasn't using the passive voice correctly. Aren't I?

I agree with Bob that your sentence was correct.

About Bob's potential objections (which might actually be the teacher's objections):

1. The infinitive is perfectly fine there. It is acting as an adverb describing the reason that the students are being given the paper.

2. Some teachers have a knee-jerk objection to the passive voice because the active voice is nore" interesting" and "dynamic". Neither of those adjectives have anything to do with lesson plans. The advantage of the passive voice in tasks is that it eliminates the need to repeat the same pronoun(s). In the active voice, you will need to keep repeating "I" and "they", which is neither interesting nor dynamic.