Welcome to this comprehensive guide on reported speech (also known as indirect speech) in English! Reported speech is how we convey what someone else said without using their exact words. It’s a crucial skill for effective communication, whether you’re summarizing a conversation or telling a story. This blog post will break down the rules for reporting statements, commands, and questions, providing clear examples and engaging activities to help you master this important grammatical concept.
Reporting Statements
When reporting statements, we generally make changes to the tense, pronouns, and time/place references. The most common reporting verbs are said and told. ‘Told’ requires an object (e.g., He told me), while ‘said’ does not (e.g., He said).
Here’s a breakdown of the key changes:
Direct Speech
Present Simple: “I am happy.”
Present Continuous: “I am eating.”
Past Simple: “I went to the store.”
Present Perfect: “I have finished my work.”
Past Continuous: “I was sleeping.”
Future Simple: “I will go.”
can – “I can swim.”
must – “I must study.”
Reported Speech
Past Simple: He said (that) he was happy.
Past Continuous: He said (that) he was eating.
Past Perfect: He said (that) he had gone to the store.
Past Perfect: He said (that) he had finished his work.
Past Perfect Continuous: He said (that) he had been sleeping.
Conditional Simple: He said (that) he would go.
could – He said (that) he could swim.
had to – He said (that) he had to study.
Notice that the word “that” is optional after the reporting verb. Also, time and place expressions often change:
now → then
today → that day
yesterday → the day before / the previous day
last week → the week before / the previous week
tomorrow → the next day / the following day
next week → the next week / the following week
here → there
this → that
these → those
Example:
Direct: “I will see you here tomorrow,” she said.
Reported: She said that she would see me there the next day.
Reporting Commands
Commands (also called imperatives) are reported using tell + object + to + infinitive for positive commands and tell + object + not to + infinitive for negative commands. The tense doesn’t change in the same way as with statements.
Direct Speech
“Clean your room!” my mother said to me.
“Don’t be late!” the teacher said to us.
Reported Speech
My mother told me to clean my room.
The teacher told us not to be late.
Reporting Questions
Reporting questions involves a few more steps. We use the verbs ask, enquire, want to know, etc. The word order changes from question word order to statement word order.
Yes/No Questions: Use if or whether.
Wh- Questions: Use the same question word (who, what, where, when, why, how).
Direct Speech
“Are you coming?” he asked.
“What is your name?” she asked me.
“Where do you live?” they asked.
Reported Speech
He asked if/whether I was coming.
She asked me what my name was.
They asked where I lived.
Remember to adjust the tense, pronouns, and time/place expressions as needed, similar to reporting statements.
Key Change: Notice how the auxiliary verbs (do, does, did) disappear in reported questions.
Practice Activities
Let’s put your knowledge to the test! Try converting the following sentences from direct speech to reported speech.
“I am going to the cinema tonight,” John said.
“Don’t forget to buy milk!” she told him.
“Have you finished your homework?” my father asked me.
“I can help you,” said Sarah.
“Where did you go on vacation?” they asked.
(Answers below)
And now for the answers:
John said that he was going to the cinema that night.
She told him not to forget to buy milk.
My father asked me if/whether I had finished my homework.
Sarah said that she could help me.
They asked where I had gone on vacation.
Conclusion
Congratulations! You’ve now covered the fundamentals of reported speech in English, including statements, commands, and questions. With practice and attention to detail, you’ll confidently use reported speech in your everyday conversations and writing. Remember to focus on the tense changes, pronoun adjustments, and the specific rules for each type of sentence. Good luck, and keep practicing!
My secondary school is placed in a working and humble neighbourhood, made up of a variety of families of different sociocultural and socioeconomic levels. This requires the school to adapt its educational response. 3rd CSE-D is a mixed ability group, and it is quite heterogeneous because we can find different learning rhythms and motivation. Some of the students roughly fall within the category of “basic users” of English, according to the CEFR. There are four students who repeat the course and a student with ADHD.
Justification/Objectives
In the second term, the learning framework relates to past events. Working on the past allows students to explore the lives of people who belong to their families and have made a difference in the world. It can also help students to develop their research, writing, and critical thinking skills, as well as their creativity, imagination, feelings and emotions. Through this unit, they can discover new aspects of their families, express their socio-affective relations, and share their knowledge with others.
The main goal is that students learn how to write a biography. In doing so, they are able to:
explore history, culture, and more through an individual’s achievements and experiences (stage objectives ‘c, j’).
find inspiration in stories of people overcoming challenges and contributing to the world (stage objective ‘a’).
practise expository writing and revise the use and form of the past tense (stage obj. ‘i’).
organise information chronologically and coherently for an engaging final presentation (stage objective ‘l’).
Description of the Final Task
The final task consists of writing a biography about one of the students’ relatives, making a flipbook and presenting it to the rest of the class.
Curricular elements
SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 1. Understand the general meaning and the most relevant details of oral, written and multimodal texts to respond to concrete communicative needs. Stage Obj.: e-l. Descriptors: CLC2, CLC3, MC1, MC2, STEM1, DC1, PSLLC5, CCAE2
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA 1.1. Extract and analyse the global meaning and the main ideas from oral, written and multimodal texts on everyday issues.
CONTENTS (BASIC KNOWLEDGE)
LEX.3.A.2. Basic strategies to understand oral, written and multimodal texts, and techniques to extract the main and secondary ideas.
LEX.3.A.5. Recognition of the context, organisation and structuring according to genre, textual function and structure.
LEX.3.A.7. Vocabulary of common use and of interest to students daily life: family, jobs and professions, verbs, etc.
SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 2. Produce oral, written and multimodal texts, searching in reliable sources and using planning strategies to express in a creative and coherent way. Stage Obj.: b, d-l. Descriptors: CLC1, MC1, MC2, STEM1, DC2, PSLLC5, EC1, CCAE3
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA 2.1. Express orally medium extension texts, structured and appropriate to the communicative situation on personal relevance, to explain and describe in different supports and gradually autonomous.
CONTENTS (BASIC KNOWLEDGE)
LEX.3.A.4. Commonly used communicative functions: introduce oneself, describe people, narrate past events, paraphrase and summarise.
LEX.3.A.6. Linguistic units of meanings associated with the expression of space and spatial relations, time and temporal relations, affirmation, denial and logical relations.
LEX.3.A.7. See above.
LEX.3.A.8. Commonly used sound, accent, rhythmic and intonation patterns.
SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 3. Interact with others orally and written with growing autonomy, using cooperation strategies to respond to concrete communicative purposes using respect and courtesy standards. Stage Obj.: a-k. Descriptors: CCL5, CP1, CP2, CPSAA3, CC3
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA 3.1. Plan and collaborate actively, through different supports, in interactive situations, on daily issues close to their experience, adapting to different genres, showing initiative, empathy and respect for linguistic courtesy, as well as for the different ideas, concerns and motivations of the interlocutors, determining responsible communication
CONTENTS (BASIC KNOWLEDGE)
LEX.3.A.8. See above.
LEX.3.B.1. Strategies and techniques to respond effectively and with increasing levels of fluency, adequacy and correctness to a specific communicative need despite the limitations derived from the level of competence in the foreign language and in the other languages of one’s linguistic repertoire
SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 4. Mediate in everyday situations using simple strategies and knowledge aimed at explaining or simplifying messages, to transmit information efficiently, clearly and responsibly. Stage Obj.: a-l. Descriptors: CCL5, CP1, CP2, CP3, CPSAA1, PSLLC3, CCEC1.
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA 4.1. Infer, analyse and explain brief and simple texts and messages, showing respect and empathy for the interlocutors, relying on various resources.
CONTENTS (BASIC KNOWLEDGE)
LEX.3.A.1. Self-confidence and initiative. Error as an integral part of the learning process and an instrument for improvement. Respect for intellectual property and copyright on the sources consulted.
LEX.3.A.3. Knowledge, skills and attitudes that allow carrying out mediation activities in everyday situations.
LEX.3.C.1. The foreign language as a source of information and as a tool for social participation and personal enrichment.
SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 5. Expand and use personal linguistic repertoires between different languages, analysing and reflecting on their similarities and differences to improve the response to specific communicative needs. Stage Obj.: b, d-i, k Descriptors: CP2, PSLLC1, CPSAA5, CD2
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA
5.2. Creatively use strategies and knowledge to improve the ability to communicate and learn the foreign language, in real situations with support from other participants and analog and digital tools adapted to an intermediate level of complexity for oral and written co-production.
CONTENTS (BASIC KNOWLEDGE)
LEX.3.B.1. Strategies and techniques to respond effectively and with increasing levels of fluency, adequacy and correctness to a specific communicative need.
LEX.3.B.2. Commonly used strategies to identify, organise, retain, recover and creatively use linguistic units, lexicon, morphosyntax, sound patterns, orthographic, based on the comparison of the languages.
5.3. Register and analyse the progress and learning of foreign languages by selecting the most effective strategies to overcome the difficulties and consolidate their learning, carrying out self-assessment activities.
CONTENTS (BASIC KNOWLEDGE)
LEX.3.A.1. See above.
LEX.3.B.3. Commonly used strategies and tools for self-assessment, co-assessment and self-repair, analog and digital, individual and cooperative.
SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 6. Value critically and adapt to linguistic, cultural and artistic diversity, identifying similarities/differences between languages and cultures, to act empathically and respectfully in intercultural situations. Stage Obj.: a-d, f-l. Descriptors: CCL5, CP3, PSLLC1, CC3, CCEC1.
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA 6.1. Act adequately, empathically and respectfully in common intercultural situations, building links between different languages, rejecting any type of discrimination, prejudice and stereotype in daily communicative contexts.
CONTENTS (BASIC KNOWLEDGE)
LEX.3.C.3. Cultural patterns of the foreign language and sociocultural and sociolinguistic aspects of common use related to daily life, living conditions and interpersonal relationships.
LEX.3.C.4. Commonly used social conventions; non-verbal language, linguistic courtesy and digital etiquette; culture, customs and values of countries where the FL is spoken.
Methodology
Based on the Decree 102/2023. Art.6. Pedagogical principles, this unit follows a project-based learning (PBL) method together with learning stations and flipped classroom. It helps students develop skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication, as well as deep content knowledge. Regarding a biography as a non-fiction text that tells the story of someone’s life, highlighting their achievements, challenges, and experiences, involves students in research, reflection and, at the same time, dealing with Sustainable Development Goals, by sharing knowledge about influential individuals and gender equality (4/5) and with the Andalusia’s culture as a cross-curricular topic. This unit is directly related to other linguistic subjects (Spanish and French), art, in which students will design and draw their relatives’ portraits to make the flipbook and ICT, since students will develop the activity in google slides.
Lessons Sequence
All lessons include a warm-up activity (think outside the box, tongue-twister, word-ladder, brain teaser. Regarding the grouping, students will work individually on learning stations. As far as resources are concerned students will use their notebook, oral and written texts, worksheets and their flipbook. As a final task, after every lesson, students will complete their learning logs.
The lessons/activities students will do in this teaching unit/learning situation are the following:
Listen to different videos dealing with biographies and answer some questions about them, paying attention to the different elements included in a biography:
Reading comprehension about Marie Curie. Read a text about a biography and analyse the linguistic aspects such as: verb tenses and the vocabulary used and the structure of the text.
5
Answer a questionnaire: choose one of your relatives to write about their life. Research about the person’s life using reliable sources. Contrast: past and present (plickers).
6
Create a timeline of the main events of the person’s life (Canva). Ask and investigate: How did this person contribute to the world? What were the main obstacles they faced? How did they overcome them? What can we learn from their life?
7
Write a draft, using the timeline as a guide. Write in the third person and in the past tense objectively. Start making your flipbook (google slides). Revise and edit your biography, checking for accuracy, clarity, and coherence.
8-9
Present each biography. Use your flipbook to showcase your work. Reflect on your learning process and your final product: what you learned, what you enjoyed, what you found difficult, and what you would do differently next time… + co-evaluation time (coRubrics).
Attention to diversity and UDL guidelines
My students show different capacities to learn, activities with different degrees of complexity are designed to fulfil the learning objectives, varying the types of activities (learning stations) to suit my students’ multisensory modalities, following the basic UDL guidelines:
Action and expression: provide meaningful ways that learners can present their projects.
Representation: make dictionaries available, highlight patterns, clarify vocabulary with pictograms, customise perception by posting charts so that all students can view them.
Engagement: provide feedback and self-assessment tools, promote expectations and beliefs that optimise motivation, and foster collaboration and community.
My ADHD student will work as the rest of her classmates, but she will have a guide with the steps to follow, like a checklist and the different steps will be always visible in the IWB, to know the step they are in every moment, favouring the concentration in class.
Reinforcement and Extension activities are available in google classroom to overcome any learning necessity, either the general group or the 4 students who repeat the course.
Assessment and instruments of evaluation
The evaluation of this unit and the final task will be carried out through a rubric, which will take into account the different assessment criteria mentioned above. It will measure the students’ progress and achievement with some indicators of success for each criteria.
Initial assessment consists of discussing what students already know about biographies. defining the term “biography” and discussing its purpose by highlighting key elements such as factual information, achievements, and the significance of the person’s life.
Self-assessment strategies are used to help my students reflect on their own work during the project-based learning process. They write a learning log after each lesson in order to reflect on their own progress and identify their strengths/weaknesses. Co-evaluation will take place during the presentation when students value one another through the app CoRubrics.
Assessment of the teaching process and materials/resources. It will also be evaluated by keeping a record. The teacher reflects on the degree of attainment of the specific competency and the assessment criteria, and takes note of any difficulties concerning any particular point, by using a google form. On the other hand, the suitability and interest of materials and resources will be evaluated as well. As for the activities, it will be valued to what extent they were appropriate, interesting, attractive and engaging for the students.
EXTRA PRACTICE ON PAST TENSE
Click on this link to visit another post of this blog related to Past Simple.
SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 1. Understand the general meaning and the most relevant details of oral, written and multimodal texts to respond to concrete communicative needs. Stage Obj.: e-l. Descriptors: CLC2, CLC3, MC1, MC2, STEM1, DC1, PSLLC5, CCAE2
SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 2. Produce oral, written and multimodal texts, searching in reliable sources and using planning strategies to express in a creative and coherent way. Stage Obj.: b, d-l. Descriptors: CLC1, MC1, MC2, STEM1, DC2, PSLLC5, EC1, CCAE3
SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 3. Interact with others orally and written with growing autonomy, using cooperation strategies to respond to concrete communicative purposes using respect and courtesy standards. Stage Obj.: a-k. Descriptors: CCL5, CP1, CP2, CPSAA3, CC3
SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 4. Mediate in everyday situations using simple strategies and knowledge aimed at explaining or simplifying messages, to transmit information efficiently, clearly and responsibly. Stage Obj.: a-l. Descriptors: CCL5, CP1, CP2, CP3, CPSAA1, PSLLC3, CCEC1.
SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 5. Expand and use personal linguistic repertoires between different languages, analysing and reflecting on their similarities and differences to improve the response to specific communicative needs. Stage Obj.: b, d-i, k Descriptors: CP2, PSLLC1, CPSAA5, CD2
SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 6. Value critically and adapt to linguistic, cultural and artistic diversity, identifying similarities/differences between languages and cultures, to act empathically and respectfully in intercultural situations. Stage Obj.: a-d, f-l. Descriptors: CCL5, CP3, PSLLC1, CC3, CCEC1.