Building in direct speech

1) Choose a story that the class are already familiar with and tell them a very small part which incorporates interaction. Do this in two different ways: one using direct speech and one using reported speech and show the written version of each as you say them on a mini whiteboard or a shared powerpoint slide. For example:

...... So little Red Riding Hood told her grandmother what big eyes she had.

......So little Red Riding Hood said to her grandmother, 'Wow! Granny! What big eyes you have!'

Discuss how the second version requires more performance on the part of the speaker, and is probably more interesting to listen to since it encourages the listener to imagine the words actually being said.

2) Give each half of the class one of the stories below. Ask them to read it in pairs (or in breakout rooms if in lockdown theatre mode) and make sure that they understand what happens. Tell them that they're going to retell the story to somebody who hasn't read it and, in order to make it more interesting, they're going to incorporate more direct speech into the telling. Ask them to think of and write down some specific things that the characters in the story could say. Help them out with this as you visit each breakout room.

3) Ask them to rehearse in their pairs, so that the direct speech fits naturally into the story, and so that it is said in the way that the characters in the story would say it. They should eventually be able to tell the story in their own words without looking at the original.

4) Now split the pairs up so that you have one student from one side of the class working with one student from the other (or reassign the breakout rooms). Ask them to share their new versions of the stories with each other. Then invite one or two tellers of each story to perform it in their best possible way to the camera. Encourage feedback and discussion.

It was a dark and cold evening and an electrician was driving home after a long day at work. He saw a young woman hitchhiking by the side of the road. He was surprised to see her without a coat and stopped to ask her where she wanted to go. She told him the address and, as he knew where it was, and it was so cold outside, he told her he could take her all the way to her house, but she would have to sit in the back of his van. She thanked him and got in. When they got to her house he stopped and got out to open the back of his van. To his amazement the girl had disappeared. He went to knock on the door of the house and told the man who answered what had happened. The owner of the house was very shocked and told him that the girl he described sounded like his daughter, but that she had been killed in a car accident exactly one year previously.

Two young men were on holiday in Australia. They were driving along a quiet country road when suddenly their camper van seemed to hit something. They were worried and, when they got out to have a look, they saw a kangaroo lying dead in front of them. One of them suggested that it might be funny to dress the kangaroo up in some of their clothes. He put his sunglasses and jacket on the kangaroo and they started to take photographs of it. Suddenly the kangaroo jumped up. It wasn't dead at all -only stunned. He started to jump off into the desert. They knew they would have to catch the kangaroo because all their money and credit cards were in the jacket pocket. Then they realised that they wouldn't be able to go after it in the van because the keys were also in the jacket pocket. They were horrified as they saw their kangaroo disappearing into the distance.

Note

Asking students to transform direct speech into reported speech has become a traditional classroom activity in language classrooms all over the world. But iif we want learners to develop the ability to create remote plays and stories in ways which are interesting for the listener, then being able to produce direct speech appropriately is a much more important skill. As direct speech involves performing the actual words used, it can help to give the listener the feeling of actually being there.