Words that hold a process together
Eight expressions used to move a description from one stage to the next. Match each to its job.
Four processes
A · A workshop that makes chairs
The ash is bought green and stacked outside for two years before anything is done with it. Once it has dried, the boards are cut roughly to length, then left another month indoors, because a board that is dried too fast will move afterwards.
The legs are turned on a lathe by one of three people, depending on who is in. The seats are dished by hand — this is the slowest stage and the one that cannot be hurried. The parts are then fitted together dry, checked, taken apart, glued and clamped overnight.
Finishing is done in a separate room, because dust from the workshop will ruin a wet surface. Each chair is signed underneath by whoever made it, which matters when one comes back for repair twenty years later.
B · A recipe, as printed today
Rub the butter into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar. Add the egg and bring it together with your hands — don’t overwork it.
Chill the dough for half an hour, then roll it out and cut your shapes. Bake at 180°C for twelve minutes, until the edges are just golden.
The same recipe in a 1954 cookbook begins: "The butter is rubbed into the flour. The sugar is stirred in. The dough is chilled for half an hour and then rolled out." Same process, same century, entirely different relationship with the reader.
C · A blood sample, ward to result
The sample is taken on the ward and labelled at the bedside — never afterwards, and never anywhere else, because a mislabelled tube cannot be corrected later, only discarded.
It is placed in a sealed bag and sent to the laboratory, either by porter or, in three hospitals in the region, by pneumatic tube. On arrival it is booked in, spun in a centrifuge and loaded onto the analyser.
Results are released automatically unless a value falls outside a set range. Those are held and reviewed by a biomedical scientist before anybody on the ward can see them — which is where most of the delay happens, and the delay is deliberate.
D · A planning application
Applications are submitted online and validated within five working days. Once an application has been validated, neighbours are notified and a site notice is displayed.
Consultation runs for twenty-one days. Comments are logged and summarised in the officer’s report. The report is written by the case officer and, for most applications, the decision is delegated — that is, it is taken by an officer rather than by the committee.
In practice, though, the twenty-one days are frequently extended, and applicants are not always told why. Mistakes were made in the handling of several applications last year, according to the council’s own review.
Seven statements. Decide which text each is true of. A text may be the answer more than once.
A The chair workshop
B The recipe
C The blood sample
D The planning application
1. Uses a by-phrase because the identity of the person genuinely matters later.
2. Speaks directly to the reader and tells them what to do.
3. Explains that a delay in the process is intentional.
4. Contains a passive with no agent where a reader might reasonably want one.
5. Gives a reason why a stage cannot be done faster.
6. Says that an error at one stage cannot be repaired at any later stage.
7. Shows the same content written for two different relationships with the reader.
The one to keep looking at. Text D ends: Mistakes were made in the handling of several applications last year. Everything in that sentence is true and nobody is in it. Who made them? The sentence does not merely leave it out — it is built so that the question does not arise.
That is one use of the passive. It is not the main one, and Lesson 4 gives you a test for telling them apart.
How the participles sound
Three endings, one spelling
| Ending sounds like | After | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| /t/ | a voiceless sound — p, k, f, s, ʃ, tʃ | stacked, checked, dished, finished, packed |
| /d/ | a voiced sound — b, g, v, z, m, n, l, r, or a vowel | labelled, signed, glued, delivered, reviewed |
| /ɪd/ | only after t or d | submitted, validated, extended, needed, decided |
And the auxiliaries, which are where the sentence actually gets hard to hear.
It’s been sent — /ɪts bɪn sent/, with been short and unstressed, not /biːn/. They’d been told — /ðeɪd bɪn təʊld/. It’ll be checked — /ˈɪtl̩ bi tʃekt/. It’s being checked — two forms of be in a row, and both are weak.
Say the four aloud twice. Passive auxiliaries carry no stress in English, which is exactly why learners do not hear them and then do not produce them.
Four sentences have been removed from a fifth process description. Put each one back where it belongs.
Bicycles that are left chained to the railings are removed twice a year. [1]
The bike is cut free and taken to a compound on the edge of the city, where it is tagged and photographed. [2] Anything claimed in that period is released on production of a receipt or a photograph.
[3] They are checked over by a mechanic, and those that can be repaired for under twenty pounds are repaired.
The rest are stripped for parts. [4] Nobody is told which of the three things happened to their bicycle, because by then nobody has asked.
Same content, other camera
One to three words per gap. Watch the tense: this description moves between past, present and future.
The old bridge in 1911 and widened twice since. It every two years, and the last inspection out in March. Corrosion on two of the main beams, so the southern lane at present. The repairs next spring, and the bridge fully in June.
Six sentences. One error each.
1. The samples was sent yesterday.
2. The report will written by the case officer.
3. The dough is chill for half an hour.
4. The application has been validate.
5. The chair is signed underneath by the person who made it by hand.
6. The bike is took to a compound.
Rewrite it for a different reader
Task card · Pairs · 12 minutes · Writing then speaking
Take text B, the recipe, and rewrite the first two paragraphs the way the 1954 cookbook would have. Then take one paragraph of text A or C and rewrite it as instructions to a new person on their first day.
Six minutes writing, six minutes comparing with the pair beside you.
- Recipe into passive: the reader disappears, and the food becomes the subject of every sentence.
- Process into instructions: the reader appears, and every sentence starts with a verb.
- For each version, say who it is written for, and what it assumes about them.
- Find one sentence that got worse in the rewrite. There always is one — say why.
What you are testing. Neither version is better English. The imperative recipe assumes a reader standing in a kitchen with their hands in the bowl. The passive recipe assumes a reader being told how a thing is done. Choosing between them is a choice about who you are talking to, and it is made with grammar.
What changed in the rewrite
Two questions.
1. When you turned the recipe passive, what happened to you?
2. Which sentence got worse in the rewrite, most often across the room?
Four processes, four readers
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. How is been pronounced in it’s been sent?
2. Why does Mistakes were made feel different from The samples are tested?
Next. The formation, across every tense you need — and the two places where learners lose the auxiliary they cannot hear.