Involve the Students

Secondly, try to involve the students as much as possible throughout the learning process to keep interest and motivation high: elicit the target language, ask questions, and have students write on the board. In this way the teacher is talking with the students, rather than to them, and is a part of the learning process rather than the focus. Adopting a participative, student-centred approach to learning promotes learner autonomy, which is a necessary ingredient in the language learning process.(15)

Provide plenty of examples rather than a rule

Thirdly, provide plenty of examples as it will be easier for the students to see the pattern. In this way, the students will be better able to learn inductively through the process of discovery, which requires a deeper level of cognitive processing, and therefore aids the learning process.(16)

Provide plenty of opportunity to practice

Fourthly, it is important to provide plenty of opportunity for practice and to accommodate the different learning styles with a balance of activities that focus on the form, function, and meaning of the different reporting verbs, as well as the different skills; there should also be a gradual shift from passive to productive skills in the classroom as passive skills can be focused on by the students for homework. The difficulty will be to find interesting activities. Below is a list of possible ways to practice using reported speech:

• There are plenty of gap-fill and transformation exercises in the supplementary grammar texts listed in Appendix 5;

• Scott Thornbury has a good activity that focuses on here + now versus there + then;(17)

• Role play scenarios can work well if set up properly (refer Appendix 7); (18)

• Interview scenarios are also useful (refer to Appendix 8 for some suggested activities) ;(19)

• Newspapers provide a good resource (refer to Appendix 8 for a good activity);

• I would also recommend taking advantage of the extensive material and activities available on the World Wide Web (see Appendix 6);

• Refer to Appendix 7 for a list of activities.

Experiment with a variety of approaches

Finally, experiment with different approaches. At pre-intermediate and intermediate levels, I find that a focus on the grammar helps the students to understand how to produce reported speech. At higher levels, a Lexical Approach that focuses on collocations often works better.(20) Furthermore, presenting reporting verbs according to their function or in the context of a given situation will help the students to understand why we use reported speech as well as when to use reported. What is important to bear in mind is that any approach taken needs to focus on form, function, and meaning.

1. Downing, a. & Locke, L. (1992). P. 300  2. Azar, B. (1989). P. 275 3. Swan, M. (1980). P.500 4. Thomson, A.J. & Martinet, A.v. (1960. p.269 5. Eastwood, J. (1994). P. 347 6. Swan, M. (1980). p. 501 7. Swan, M. (1980). P.502 8. Thomson, A.J. & Martinet, A.v. (1960. p.271 9. Fuchs, M. & Bonner, M. (2002). Longman p. 326 10. Dunn, R. (1983). p. 49, 496-506 Dun emphasises the importance of the four modalities to the learning process. Rienhart, H. (1976). p. 60, 160-168 Rienhart defines the four modalities of learning as visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, tactile. 11. Gardner, H. (1993). p.7. Gardener classifies learning styles in terms of intelligence, and defines intelligence as “the abilit