Gossip – reported speech lesson plan
This lesson takes the theme of gossip to explore the grammar of reported speech. This plan doesn’t include a formal explanation of the grammar of reported speech so how you approach this is up to you.
Lesson plan and activity sheets PDF / ODT / Docx
Teacher’s notes
Reported Speech can be a tricky topic to teach and some teachers wisely decide to not formally teach it and just tackle it as it comes up. This lesson plan is an attempt to put together some activities to practice Reported Speech, how you approach the grammar explanation is down to you.
Step 1. Get the students to read the text alone and guess which word has been blanked out (gossip). Then go through the text again and answer any questions.
Step 2. Go through the discussion questions and ask students to discuss them in small groups and then report back to the class.
Step 3. Give out the quotes which have become ‘accidentally mixed up’ and get students to match the quotes with the celebrity. WARNING – these quotes are very culturally specific, maybe you want to come up with some of your own.
Step 4. Use these quotes to explain the grammar of Reported Speech.
Step 5. Get students to rewrite the sentences as reported speech and then go through the answers.
Step 6. Students interview each other in pairs and note down keywords from their partner’s answers. Students then report what they have found out to the class.