This sequence is designed to introduce students to the function of reporting speech. During the normal course of daily life, the ability to clearly restate the thoughts and words of others is essential; in context, it is: (a)critical for discussing current events, history, and culture (e.g. religion, art, laws), (b)all but necessary for telling stories and bearing witness, and (c)equally as necessary for obtaining and providing information in a variety of social settings.
Given these related functions, it can also be assumed that speech-reporting is a common feature of academic discourse, which encompasses arguments, debates, and exposition. Students engaged in critical analysis of any kind will necessarily be expected to reference the words and thoughts of others.
Students in my ESL/EFL class have been exploring the theme, "The Diverse Englishes of America." In particular, this sequence will be used to help the students discover the local variety of English spoken in Boston, which most students have encountered during their stay in the city. Students will have the opportunity to engage with a poem written by an acclaimed, historically-significant local poet, both to consider the poem for its linguistic content and for its meaning (i.e. In that we are exploring all aspects of variety in English, students will have the opportunity to consider such things as the poet's Bostonian accent, the poem's local setting, and also its tone; they may then relate this knowledge to what they have already learned about language variety and local culture.)
As identified above, there are numerous advantages to being able to report speech-- and it comes as no surprise that this topic is presented in many grammar books.1 Unfortunately, there are also numerous grammatical forms capable of carrying out this function, and many reasons why a given form may be used over another. For example, some of my younger ESL/EFL students who are familiar with American television ask me to account for quotatives such as "like" (e.g. He was like, "This is fun.") due to the high frequency of this form/function combination in popular, colloquial discourse. Of course, different conventions also hold when the original speech reported takes the form of a question.
This sequence will focus students' attention on the use of the verbs to say and to tell, specifically as they are used to report statements. In this case, students will encounter (a)that- (optional) noun clauses (b)morpho-syntactic changes of the reported verb, and (c)the inclusion and omission of noun/pronoun indirect objects. Other verbs of reporting could also be introduced in this sequence, and it is likely that students will discover these forms as a consequence of investing the language in use. However, for this sequence, the goal will be to introduce a minimal number of variations at one time.
Acquisition of this form will not only serve students in the general sense of broadening their social language skills, but it will also help them "discover" the meaning of a poem. This will be accomplished in two ways:
The justification for the teaching of this form is that, although my students are rather advanced in their acquisition of English, I regularly hear them produce mistakes when reporting speech. One of the common constructions used by learners in my classes is:?"He say me that...". In this case, it appears as though students are overgeneralizing the rule of including a NP following the reporting verb to tell. I realize that many students have a gap in their interlanguages when it comes to reporting speech, and I feel that this sequence could be very useful for many of them. Furthermore, the acquisitionof this form will allow students to have more meaningful socio-cultural exchanges.
This form/function combination serves the sole purpose of allowing the speaker to represent or restate the thoughts and words of another person or speaker. Although the form/function pairing used for reporting questions is similar and certainly related, I feel that it worthy of separate treatment. As such, this sequence will be structured around three constructions relating to the verbs to say and to tell. Examples of such constructions are provided here in the second line of each pair:
Using the criteria outlined by Lee and Van Patten (2003)2 to designate Communicative Value, I would argue that the forms in question have the characteristics of [+ semantic value] and [-redundancy]. In all of the constructions cited above, the inherent meaning represented by the form is not obtainable by other "clues" in the sentence. Consider, for example:
The primary "Text" presented in this feature is a video recording of the American
(New England-based) poet Robert
Frost reading his poem, "Mending Wall,", which includes visual representations
of the poem's imagery. The video recording can be found in the "Voices and Visions"
(1988) Series3,
and also exists in audio-only format and printed format.
Here is a written version of the poem:
Mending Wall
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
During the Presentation Stage, students can be told about the poet's connection to New England and Boston, as well as any details that the teacher feels are relevant to the discussion (including, for example, the dates during which the poet wrote, highlights of the writer's life, or references to his salient literary themes). After a brief explanation, students will asked to interact before accessing the text through a brain-storming session. The teacher should expect to write students' responses on the board both to draw students' attention to whatever relevant information may have surfaced, and also to provide permanent "clues" for the students to reference throughout the lesson. The following questions would be used:
After watching the video for the first time, students will see a transparency of the words on the board. At this point, the teacher's goal is to draw attention to certain patterns and regularities of the language. This can be accomplished if the teacher proceeds in stages, during which time he or she asks questions about these patterns; the teacher should ask students to provide specific "evidence" (i.e. words, phrases) in the poem to support their answers, and should also use the transparency to circle or underline the evidence:
In this section, students will attempt to formally hypothesize about the form/functions that featured in this lesson. The teacher's objective here is to help students construct an explanation for the difference in form and meaning that these structures elicit. The teacher should be using the students' answers from the previous stage to single out the patterns in question: (1)the verb to say in directly reported speech, (2)the verb to say and the resulting that- (optional) noun clause in indirectly reported speech, and (3)the verb to tell, the resulting indirect object NP, and the resulting that- (optional) noun clause in indirectly reported speech. The teacher accomplishes this goal by providing the students with isolated examples of these structures taken from the poem. Students should have an opportunity to see multiple examples at one time, although the teacher should direct them to hypothesize about the language by focusing their attention to individual examples, if necessary. For example, the teacher would provide an overhead or write the following on the board:
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
We've already isolated two verbs used to report speech. Based on these examples, (work with a partner and) list as many differences and similarities as you can between them. Think about the following questions:
After a discussion about the forms in question, students will have the opportunity to try out their new knowledge. Taken together, the series of structured-input and output tasks will ask the students to accomplish three goals:
This information-gap activity asks students to make generalizations about what the characters in the poem would or would not say. The statements below, which appear in the directly/indirectly-reported speech form, are not excerpts from the poem. Instead, they are generalizations based on what the students have hypothesized about the narrator and his neighbor
We have seen that there are two speakers in this poem: the narrator, who tells us about the encounter, and the neighbor. Based on what you know of these characters, and on what we've discovered about the poem's form, imagery, and themes, can you predict who would be most likely to say the following:
This information-gap activity asks students to recall the conversations that occur in the poem, to provide an appropriate verb form, and to guage the accuracy of the statements below. After the exercise, students should be encouraged to discuss their answers and to defend their choices if possible.
We will watch the video of the poem again. Using your memory or your best guess, first provide the verb form that seems most appropriate in the context; then, indicate whether the statement is true or false:
This activity will ask students to explicitly relate some main ideas/themes from the poem to the statements that support them.
Based on our class discussion, your knowledge of the poem, and your knowledge of the form, look at list one and find the statement from list two that best supports it:
This activity asks students to consider much of the knowledge they have acquired in order to work in pairs and reenact, under the guidance of a team-director, the poem."
In groups of three, your task will be to present this poem as a mini-drama. Together, your group will write a script which will include a narrative and dialogue. Your group will then present the poem so that the narrator describes what is happening, and the actors perform. Remember, you also have some information about the sound of "New England" or "Boston" English. Try to include this feature in your presentation to make the demonstration more authentic."
Example:
This activity asks students to apply all of the knowledge they've acquired to reflect upon a situation in their own lives involving conversation.
Can you think of a time when you had a conversation with someone, but you felt like they didn't really understand what you were saying? Or have you ever found yourself confused and unsure by what someone has said to you? For this exercise, you will be asked to either (a)write a description of a conversation that you've had with someone that will allow us to see why communication between you failed, or (b)write a poem in the style of Robert Frost, being sure to include references to communication.
Example: Once, I was at a bar in Boston. A song by Prince began to play and I said quietly, but out-loud, "Great! I love Prince." Although I thought no one heard me, the person standing next to me told me that he loved Prince too. I said in response, "He never loses his style." To my surprise, the person responded to me by saying, "I never lose my style either." I laughed, but I must have misunderstood him because he said, "Did you hear me? I said I never lose my style either." I told him that he was funny, but he looked suddenly angry. Within a couple of seconds, I realized that this person was looking for a fight...
The book I have been using in my class4 dedicates an entire chapter to "Direct and Indirect Speech." The presentation aspect feels as though it may be part of a PACE sequence, but this proves to be false. As Image 1 demonstrates, the authors preview the form by presenting a discussion based on excerpts from the news. A few discussion questions are asked that foreshadow the structure:
Before students have an opportunity to "discover the form," the book moves quickly into a presentation of paradigms. Moreover, there is very little context given for such a presentation. There is no connection between the questions asked before the chapter's opening passage, those asked directly before the paradigm, and the forms presented on the next two pages. (See Images 2 and 3)
Unfortunately for students, the authors also choose to present the paradigm in all its complexity. Students are receiving information about directly and indirectly quoting statements, Yes/No Questions, and WH-questions. For each sub-component, students are given a series of sentences that relate to the passage at the beginning of the chapter, but that have little contextual reality.
On the following pages, students are also explicitly presented with a series of "rules"--Do's and Don't's--that appear even to me to be overwhelmingly difficult. Students have no opportunity to see the relationship between the various forms and their functions, nor to the have the opportunity to "discover" new forms on their own. Students receive three and one half pages in the same format presented in Image 4.
After the presentation of grammar rules, students are asked to complete "Focused Practice" exercises. These exercises, however, are merely "look-back" exercises. Nine of the eleven can be construed as "Find the correct answer." Students have little opportunity to test the new forms, but instead, have only to re-construct the rules presented earlier in the chapter. Furthermore, the exercises are disconnected and have no relationship to the chapter's opening theme or to each other. Image 5 contains a representative sample of the exercises.
In only two exercises are students asked to think creatively or critically. There is only one listening exercise, the answers of which require no activation of schema. Instead, students listen to a report, and write an indirectly reported speech statement based on a question as in the following:
Take in sum, the presentation of this form is simply unrealistic for most learners. Not only is there an overload of information, but students have little impetus to acquire these forms. The exercises are only mildly interested, there is little room for creative expression, and the "rules" are given precedence over the discovery process. Whatever meaning may arise from this presentation is likely to occur by chance, as this book clearly favors an explicit, form-only approach to grammar teaching.