Reported Speech 3n342u

Woman Man It appeared to him that this was going a little far. Just a touch out of bounds, if she didn’t mind him saying so. Why the hell had he stayed in town the summer before? To do half a dozen jobs to get the money he sent her. That was it. She knew perfectly well they couldn’t have done it otherwise. She had agreed with him at the time. And that was the only time so help him he had ever left her to do anything by herself. Oh, he could tell that to his great grandmother. She had her notion of what had kept him in town. Considerably more than a notion, if he wanted to know. So, she was going to bring all that up again, was she? Well, she could just think what she pleased. He was tired of explaining. It may have looked funny but he had simply got hooked in, and what could he do? It was impossible to believe that she was going to take it seriously. Yes, yes, she knew how it was with a man: if he was left by himself a minute, some woman was certain to kidnap him. And, naturally he couldn’t hurt her feelings by refusing. Characteristics of indirect speech Quotative frames: No quotation marks Conjunctions: if, that Backshift: past, present, past perfect, past continuous, Demonstratives : that, Personal pronouns: she, he, they, it Time adverbials: the summer before, the only time, at the time Characteristics of direct speech: Inverted questions : so, she was going to bring all that up again, was she? Exclamations: Oh, Yes, yes, I tend to teach reported speech when I believe my students have got some level to understand it and when I have to teach it according to the syllabus. Honestly, this is one of the topics difficult for me that is why I sometimes find hard to explain it to my students. I have tried the activities such as the “telephone” and “The television report” in Yule (1998) but it is really hard and overwhelming for students to comprehend the changes in tenses, in case of the reported speech. I found one activity I would like to share with you in Ur, P (2001). In my opinion it is an understandable activity I will definitely do with students in the secondary school. Reported speech: Reading and discussion of texts Materials: A pile of English newspaper cutting reporting interviews. Procedure: Give the students the cuttings (at least one each), and tell them to copy out, or mark in fluorescent pen, instances of indirect speech. You may need to help individuals with comprehension of more difficult texts. Each student then reads out a selection of his her sentences, the others try to guess the speaker and circumstances. Finally, they could convert them into direct speech.