Reported Speech using the World Service
Hey, I found teaching reported speech pretty boring, til I hit on the idea of using the world service. Might seem pretty obvious, but it really worked. As I teach academics, they were all pretty up on what was happening, not sure how it would work with less educated levels. First, I asked them to think about what had been on the news recently, what kind of stories might come up. Then we listened to the news together (you could record it, or listen live) and the students took notes. Then we discussed the stories, and each student wrote a report on one of the stories, using reported speech eg "The reporter said that 15 British hostages had been captured in Iran. He explained that they were accused of trespassing in Iranian waters." etc.
This builds their vocabulary too, as they should try and use words which are more interesting than just "said" such as "explained" or "continued".
I found it more interesting to use the radio live, rather than a recording, as it forces the students to concentrate. In many situations, students won't be able to listen to things over and over again, so it really helps them focus.
Hope this helps
Li, Berlin
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