Transcript General objective: to practice and use the reported

General objective: to practice and use the reported speech.*
*Grammatical objective: to be acquainted with the changes required to Report a
direct statement.
An Activity for Teaching Reported Speech
(1) The teacher prints a set of quotation cards and a game board. The quotation cards
should be pasted onto cardboard and cut out.
a) If it is the first game, the teacher can flip over a quotation card and the student whose
turn it is reads the quote and reports what was said, heard, read, or thought. For example, if
the card say "it's a beautiful day" then the student will say, "He/she said that it was a
beautiful day." Every card has been designed so that the student can easily identify the
pattern that is required.
(2)it is important to get a set of gestures down to help the student who is
listening guess which pattern is required. For example, if the pattern is "heard
that" then the student who is speaking should put his/her hand to his/her ear
and read out the quote. If the pattern is "yell that", the student can make a
clenched fist and read the quote loudly. Both "think that" and "wonder if/what"
can be done with a finger tapping on the temple
Do we always need to backshift the verb in reported speech? Some argues that where the
reporting verb is in the past tense, then we should move the other verbs back a tense
automatically.
However, this, IMO, can lead to sentences that make little sense. When we are reporting facts or
things which are still in the future at the time of reporting, I can see no need whatsoever to
backshift unless you really want to. There are also cases when shifting the past to the past
perfect doesn't seem appropriate. Which of the following make more sense?
1) She said Elizabeth II is the queen of England.
2) She said Elizabeth II was the queen of England.
Elizabeth II is queen at the time of reporting.
1) She said Elizabeth I was the queen of England.
2) She said Elizabeth I had been the queen of England.
Elizabeth I has been dead for hundreds of years at the time of reporting.
I would go for number 1 in both cases.
Match #1: The Basic Five and 'That' Noun Clauses:
He thought that his
mother would like
it.
. . . said that . . .
. . . thought that . . .
. . . heard that . . .
. . . wrote that . . .
. . . read that . . .
Grammar note: When reporting someone's speech you usually change any present
tense form into the past tense, For example, "I will go" becomes "He said that he would
go." If it is already in the past tense, then it just stays as the past tense. This rule of
changing into the past tense is not a strong rule. Sometimes you can leave it in the
present tense as well. It really depends on the distance between when something was
said and when someone reported what was said. And so if you report the speech right
afterwards, you can leave it in the present tense. You can also leave it in present tense
when you are talking about things that are true in general. But when I play this game
with my students, I always force them to change it into the past tense.
Match #2: Different Ways to Say Something:
He yelled that he wanted to go home.
. . . bragged that . . .
. . . complained that. . .
. . . confessed that . . .
. . . denied that . . .
. . . whispered that . . .
. . . yelled/shouted that
Match #4: Reported Commands, Advice, Warnings, and Favors.
She asked him to mail a letter.
. . . tell someone to . . .
. . . warn someone to . . .
. . . advise someone to . . .
. . . ask someone to . . .
. . . beg someone to . . .
Exercise :
•
1 - He told me he ___ be here by three o'clock at the latest and •
2 - She promised she _____ do it by the end of the week and then
let me
3 - She said it _____ raining when she got here •
4 - She explained how ______ do it •
5 - He said he _____ her before •
•
Resources
http://bogglesworld.com/grammar_soccer.htm
http://a4esl.org/q/h/9901/tm-reported1.html
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E – mail address :
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