Students can get fresh air and be physically active

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
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It is believed that regular breaks during which students can get fresh air and be physically active help them to learn.

It is believed that regular breaks during which students can get fresh air and are physically active help them to learn.

Hi, I’m a student learning English as a foreign language.

I feel it’s also possible to use “are“ in above sentence, but my english teachers say that it is not possible because using ‘are’ in the text is contextually incorrect.

So never can ”are” be used, although it doesn’t matter formally -so, using ‘are’ in the sentence is grammatically incorrect because of the context.

I’ve known that using ‘be’ in that sentence instead of ‘are’ is more natural, but I don’t think using ‘are’ cannot be allowed. My teachers’ argument is contextual problem so I attach original text.

Thus, I really want to ask that in this text ‘are’ is not allowed, and using ‘are’ is too unnatural to use it in the text.

What makes Finnish education so good?

If you think the teachers must be very strict, think again! Finnish people believe that we should “let children be children.”

Many Finnish children start to learn through songs and games while they are in day care.

Then, at the age of seven, they begin formal academic studies. However, school hours are

short, and there isn’t much homework. There is also a mandatory 15-minute outdoor break for every hour of class.

It is believed that regular breaks during which students can get fresh air and be physically active help them to learn.

In addition, there is only one mandatory standardized test in Finland, and….

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Hi Circle Dong, welcome to our forum. Your post contains a lot of sentences and for you to increase the chances of getting meaningful responses it’s better if you create one post for each sentence so we can go through each of your questions one step at a time. Let’s start with your first sentence.

I don’t like the phrase ‘it is believed’. You should try to avoid passive constructions whenever you can. If you say ‘it is believed’ it’s not clear who you are talking about. Nowadays we have intelligent machines who are capable of thinking at a certain level. Do you have them in mind when you write ‘it is believed’? So, please try to rephrase this sentence.

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Thank you for reply. But… my post have a one question and most of sentences i wrote are about explanation of my question. And the first sentence -‘It is believed that regular breaks during which students can get fresh air and be physically active help them to learn.’ - is the sentence in a specific text, which i want to ask. - so i attach the text.
I also want to wirte as few sentences as possible but that’s my best.

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Try to view the sentence as a combination of the following two sentences:

Students can get fresh air.
Students can be physically active.

As you can see, you in both cases the modal verb ‘can’ is followed by an infinitive (get and be).

Please let me know if this makes sense.

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Thank you for easy explanation. i understand why ‘be’ is used. but what i would truly like to ask is possibility of using ‘are’ in the text.

In my position as an English learner, i feel ‘are’ can also be used in the text, and using ‘are’ is not out of the context while it may have difference in its meaning.

Is that just my delusion?
Is using ‘are’ in the text is grammatically incorrect and unnatural?

i would very appreciate your reply.

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It might be grammatically correct but it would definitely sound unnatural and unexpected. You can construct all kinds of grammatically correct sentences and still sound completely strange and contrived.

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Thank you for your kind explanation. now I got it.

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