Age Level: 22-30
Ability Level: Level 6 Grammar
Type of Lesson: Review
Objectives- By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
- Form statements in indirect speech
- Recognize the differences between direct and indirect speech
- Ask important information
- Incorporate questioning techniques
- Use listening skills to answer complex questions
- Use adjectives to describe people, times or events
Materials Needed:
- Homework from previous class
- Notes from previous class
- Classroom with chairs so that a mock interview could take place
- White board
- Markers
- Notebooks
Preparation:
- In the previous meeting time of the class, the students were taught how to change direct statements into indirect and completed an array of activities including changing direct quotations in newspaper sand magazines into indirect, paraphrased sentences.
- Secondly, students were given “hypothetical” topics (e.g., describe a suspect; what do you think about global warming; when is your band going on tour; why did your company close down? Etc.).
- Then, the students were put in pairs by the teacher.
- One student assumed the role of an interviewer and the other as the interviewee.
- Together, they thought of questions and answers pertaining to their topics.
Location: Regular Classroom
Warm up/Anticipatory Set/Activation (5 minutes): The teacher will say, “It’s so cold out today!” and call on a random student to ask what he (the teacher) just said; the student will have to tell the person next to him (for example), “He said it was cold outside.” The teacher will then go around and ask each group what their topics are and ensure that no students retain any questions.
Review (10 minutes): The review and presentation will be interwoven so that the lesson activities, themselves, can receive more time.
Presentation of New Material/Procedure (15 minutes): The teacher will ask for one pair to volunteer to go first. The two students will sit in the middle of the room as if they were involved in an interview on a set. The rest of the student “the audience” will act as the reporters and take notes on the questions and answers spoken by the pair. After the conversation is complete (about 5-6 minutes), the reporters can ask additional questions for clarification purposes; if no questions exist, the teacher will ask the students (for example):
- Q: “What reason did Mike give for his company closing down?”
- A: “He said they had closed because of a lack of sales”
- What Mike actually said, “We closed due to a lack of sales.”
- Notice that the reporter who answered the teacher’s question properly changed the pronoun from “we” to “they” and changed the simple past to the past perfect.
- The teacher will not ask the reporters to answer every question the pair spoke about.
- Then the next pair will go until each group has gone.
Pronunciation (5 minutes): No “formal” pronunciation lesson will take place, though students will be corrected if errors are committed.
Grammar (5 minutes): The entire lesson chiefly revolves around grammar; thus, all students will be required to speak in correct grammatical structures for the activity. Moreover, it is at this phase where the teacher will remedy any issues he observed in this lesson.
Closing (5 minutes): As a closing activity, the teacher will ask the students to write down one issue they still have with direct and indirect speech, fold the paper and submit it to the teacher. To start the next class, the teacher will ask the students to extract each piece and read the concerns aloud; the purpose of this is to address any lingering questions they may exist and to ensure that the students fully understand before proceeding to the next lesson. There is a strong likelihood that multiple students will have the same or similar concerns; this would be a good opportunity to allow the students to answer many of the questions for their classmates.
Rationale: The purpose of this lesson is to serve as a review of direct and indirect speech and to make a relatively dense topic interesting. Having the students act as reporters and interviewers enables them to be active agents and forces them to listen, comprehend, and ask questions regarding the topics being discussed; thus, the students assume the role as the teacher—the spotlight of the class—while the actual instructor assumes a more passive role, acting merely as a facilitator.
By Robert J. Platt, M.A.