Direct Speech - Indirect/Reported Speech
by Mihaela Gugiu 03 July 2022
When acquiring a new language, receptive language skills (listening and
understanding/reading) precede the expressive language skills (speaking and
writing). Oracy skills usually precede literacy (the ability to read and write) skills. This brief introduction was necessary in order to understand that for the chosen topic, Direct Speech and Indirect/Reported Speech, the students need at least 5 lessons to confidently use the skillset of turning a dialogue into a short narrative or summary, to convert the Present Tense to Past Tense. Based on the results of students' English formative assessments, the following lesson has been made with a group of 12 students, second year of language acquisition, and it worked!
For the first session, the objective/outcome was reached only for the oracy skills of storytelling; for writing, not yet. The EAL pedagogy uses the ratio 4:1 for verbal/oral and writing lessons. The problem of the EAL teachers is the lack of scheduled teaching time, there is no time to make 4 speaking (and listening) lessons and 1 only for writing what was previously practised.
A personal opinion, based on work experience in teaching, is that it would be a waste of time to work one-to-one in EAL, when a precious hour could be used for teaching and fixing a problem for 6-8-10-12 students. In UK, each school has the freedom to organize itself according the students' needs and, perhaps, this is the reason why the UK legislation is poor for EAL sudents and EAL teachers. The reality is that the number of immigrants is increasing year on year and with it, the need for a change.
The need for choosing this topic Direct/Indirect Speech is based on students' English formative assessments, made by the English faculty. As a responsible EAL teacher, I check each student's assessment, carefully, I make photocopies and I write down what I observed in terms of each aspect of English Literature and Language. Then, I plan. In planning, I follow the EAL students' timetable and if necesssary, as it frequently happens, I change it, in order to have the time to fix a problem.
Storytelling is a fundamental skill, for any student, any subject and future field of activity, and it needs all teachers'attention.
Going back to the lesson, it was the first session of a series of 5. It was structured mainly in 2 parts: verbal communication and writing. After the ususal "Last lesson we learnt...", it was revised Past Tense for some Regular and Irregular Verbs, playing a game. So far, engagement 100%.
The teacher presented a short video with a situational dialogue and the way it may be converted into a short narrative, a short story, stressing the change from present to past, announcing the lesson's outcomes/objectives. The teacher inquired what did the learners notice/hear/observe at the verbs in the 2 examples, guiding them to listen to the verb in the dialogue and then to follow it in the narrative, identifying the difference. As the comparison of the 2 texts continued, the teacher asked the students why the time adverbs, today and that day, last week and the previous week, yesterday into the day before had different forms.
The students were guided to notice the change of the pronouns.
However, the focus was on the verbs and the different ways found to replace the reporting "said" with other verbs, such as replied, answered, denied, moaned, exclaimed, observed, shouted and of course, why.
This specific group of pupils was familiar with Grammar concepts, both in their native language and in English, they easily identified and defined the verb, the noun, the pronoun, the adverb and the adjective.
An observation: if your students are not familiar with these concepts or if they forgot them, it would be a good opportunity to use an infographic.
After the above mentioned actions, the students received a handout with a situational dialogue. It was organised a role-play reading session. All the students participated in the activity. The dialogue had a basic vocabulary and it was related to the students' age and interests. The teacher prepared other 7 dialogues with new (including synonyms) and advanced vocabulary for differentiation. After the role-play, the students were asked to turn the dialogue into a short story, orally. Each student had the opportunity to create his own story, helped and guided by the teacher for the conversion of the Present Tense into Past Tense.
The first part of the lesson worked wonderfully, no delays, total engagement.
In the second part of the lesson, the students had to write only the short story. The teacher monitored each student's text. They understood how to work, but after the first 3 sentences they used the dialogue, then they remembered not to or they heard the teacher reminded them what the objective of the lesson was, then, again, some dialogue and so on. Some of the learners read their completed work, giving the opportunity to the other students to analyse it.
Meaning and conclusion or moral of the story: the need of practice, after all, this skillset is fundamental for ALL subjects and future assessments.
This was an example of a "lesson that works", a structure that worked as it was presented. It could be modified, depending on the students' needs, teacher's aims and creativity.
Let's finish this with a sample of attainment targets (Level 3) Writing, Key Stage 2, presented by Prof. Lynne Cameron and Dr. Sharon Besser in a DfE and University of Leeds report (2004):
"Pupils' writing is often organised, imaginative and clear. The main features
of different forms of writing are used appropriately, beginning to be adapted
to different readers. Sequences of sentences extend ideas logically and
words are chosen for variety and interest. The basic grammatical structure
of sentences is usually correct. Spelling is usually accurate, including that of
common, polysyllabic words. Punctuation to mark sentences full stops,
capital letters and question marks is used accurately. Handwriting is joined
and legible".
Reference: Cameron, L. and Besser, S. (2004) DfE Writing in English as an Additional Language at Key Stage 2 .
School of Education, University of Leeds
Research Report RR586
© University of Leeds 2004
ISBN 1 84478 329 4
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