“I love to read, and write,” said Alex.
Notice something in this sentence? Observe how the sentence is “reporting” a particular statement, which could have been conveyed “directly” too.
Now, that you understand the basic difference between reported and direct speech, let me also tell you that no English class is complete without the knowledge of this concept as it plays a crucial role in communication and writing. At the same time, learning this concept can be a bit difficult and challenging at first, as it requires a fair amount of practice and dedication to understanding the rules behind the conversion of direct to reported speech and vice versa.
Hence, in this blog, we will be navigating through a bunch of activities that can help students learn faster and better and also promote interaction and enthusiasm among them. Check the below-mentioned games and activities to create a diversified yet challenging learning experience for stimulating the knowledge of learners.
Engaging games to teach reported speech
From sentence building to grammar to even vocabulary, learning through games promotes enthusiasm as well as knowledge. It gives students a necessary break from the traditional way of learning. It helps them explore, interact and work in teams to achieve their objective. By playing games, they learn more than the subject which is being taught.
1. Quiz
A quiz is a great way to interact with students. It helps in engaging the whole class. Everyone is a participant and gets to learn as the one who answers is an active participant and the one who listens is the passive participant.
- Prepare a set of sentences that are in direct speech
- Divide students into teams of 3 each
- Only one student is allowed to answer at a time
- Speak the sentence in Direct Speech and teams have to answer in Reported speech
- The team to answer the maximum number of right answers wins the game
This game exposes students to interactive learning. This game encourages students to participate in the classroom. It encourages them to listen and learn and also gives them the chance to answer and gain confidence in themselves.
2. Who Am I?
This game is something that can challenge kids to listen carefully. It helps exercise active listening and is a good game to grasp the attention of students and help them participate in class.
- Narrate a small story that is full of examples of Direct and Reported Speech
- Divide the class into a set of teams as per the rows in the classroom
- While narrating, stop when there is any instance of direct or reported speech in the story
- Ask students to identify whether it is direct speech or reported speech
- The team with the most correct answers win
This game helps all students to participate. This can help in active listening, learning the concept, and the development of a healthy environment in a class.
3. Reporting Whisper
This is an interactive team game that helps in promoting learning the concept of reported speech in a challenging manner. It challenges students to apply the concept of reported speech in their daily life, which can help them retain and understand it better.
- Two teams with two members should participate each time a round is played
- One team gets a chance to say three normal sentences to the other team
- The task of the team which gets the sentence is to convert what Team A said into Reported Speech
- For example- Team A: “My friend Victor works in a pet shop.” In this case, Team B has to convert and say this in a reported speech. Team B: Team A said that their friend Victor worked in a pet shop.
- The team that converts most of the sentences correctly from direct speech to reported speech wins.
This game can help students learn by putting the concept of reported speech in their conversation. It also promotes active listening, encourages teamwork, and helps them gain confidence.
4. Find the Fault
This game is all about having an eagle’s eye. It promotes being clear with the whole concept and knowing even the little mistakes there can be in a reported speech.
- Prepare a list of 10-12 sentences
- These sentences are to be written in reported speech but should carry errors in them
- For example- Direct Speech: “I like apples”, said, Dan.
- Reported Speech with errors: Dan said, “that he likes Apples.”
- The correct answer is: Dan said that he liked apples.
- The student who identifies the fault and correctly writes most sentences in the reported speech wins.
This game is a little difficult compared to others. It can help in polishing and refining the concept of reported speech in a better fashion and help students master it.
5. The Speech Bingo
This is a fun individual game that is based on the concept of Bingo. This game is a creative way of teaching and making students practice the concept of reported speech.
- Create a set of 25 statements written in a direct speech on the blackboard
- Ask students to make 5 rows and 5 columns giving them a total of 25 boxes
- Ask students to write the answers of direct speech in different boxes
- Now, put the chits of these direct speech sentences in a bowl
- Pick chits and let students form 5 vertical, horizontal, or diagonal lines to win the bingo
This game helps in involving students and encourages participation in the class. It also helps them identify what was the direct speech to then understand the reported speech.
Interesting activities to teach reported speech
Activities are another way of helping students learn by actively participating in the classroom. Activities help students explore educational concepts in creative ways and help them learn in a playful manner.
1. Find Your Pair
This is a fun activity that includes music, interaction, and active participation. This activity is a fun way to learn the concept of reported speech.
- Prepare a set of 50 cards as per the number of students in your classroom. One card per each student
- 25 cards should have reported speech and 25 cards should have direct speech
- Number each card from 1 to 50
- After giving one random card to each student, ask students to form a circle
- Play the music and students have to simply walk and enjoy the music
- Stop the music and call out a random number
- If you call number 28 the student having that card should step out and speak out loud what is the sentence written on the card
- After this, the student with the corresponding Reported Speech or Direct Speech should come out within 10 seconds and speak the sentence written on their card
This activity can help students learn in an interactive manner. It is a very creative activity by which students can learn to identify direct and reported speech and its differences.
2. Spin The Wheel
This activity is a lucky draw activity. Students randomly get a chance to learn more about reported and direct speech.
- Install a giant spinning wheel with many examples of sentences in Direct Speech
- Spin the wheel
- Select a student randomly to answer
- The selected student has to convert the sentence in Direct Speech into Reported Speech
It is a simple activity that can help students learn better the way of converting Direct Speech into Reported or Indirect Speech.
3. Tell Me About Someone’s Day
This activity is fun and can help students in learning the art of interviewing and help them develop better social skills.
- Students have to talk to anyone during day
- They would obviously have the conversation in direct speech
- Their task is to narrate the entire conversation in reported speech
- For example, Dad said that he had a very long day at work. He said that he had a burrito for lunch.
This activity is another activity that can help students master the concept of reported speech. It helps them develop critical thinking and better concentration skills.
4. Choose The Correct Option
This game requires students to be alert as it is a challenging activity. Through this activity, students learn how exactly a sentence is framed in reported speech and what common errors are made.
- Prepare a set of 10-15 questions
- The question will have a sentence in Direct Speech
- There will be 4 options with only 1 correct
- Students have to identify and select the correct option and also give an explanation
This activity helps them learn from their mistakes. It also helps in mastering the concept of direct and reported speech.
5. Write A Story
This seems like a simple story-writing activity but there is obviously a twist. This activity challenges students to write creatively and create a story based on the concept which exercises reported speech.
- Give students a story-writing prompt
- The challenge of writing this story is that they need to have a character who converses in reported speech
- The story should be having a conversation between two or three characters where reported speech is used to narrate and convey the message
This activity helps students learn how to use the concept of reported speech in their creative writing activities. It helps them learn the application of this concept which can help them understand and remember this concept better.
Conclusion
Reported Speech is an important grammatical concept and often needs more practice. Due to the existence of many rules in this concept, students can often be perplexed. So, teachers and parents can make use of creative ways to foster a fun and effective learning environment.
The above-mentioned games and activities can help make the daunting and challenging concept of reported speech easier for students. It can also help them learn this concept in a better fashion as compared to the traditional theoretical methods of learning. These games and activities can help them gain confidence, learn teamwork and attain mastery over this concept after a certain period of time.
I am Shweta Sharma. I am a final year Masters student of Clinical Psychology and have been working closely in the field of psycho-education and child development. I have served in various organisations and NGOs with the purpose of helping children with disabilities learn and adapt better to both, academic and social challenges. I am keen on writing about learning difficulties, the science behind them and potential strategies to deal with them. My areas of expertise include putting forward the cognitive and behavioural aspects of disabilities for better awareness, as well as efficient intervention. Follow me on LinkedIn