Reporting Verbs

Ask students how they can relate what someone said. After “said” and perhaps “told” have been suggested ask them if they know any more descriptive words to relate what someone has said.
Once a reporting verb is suggested ask students to produce a sentence using the verb to check general meaning and very importantly the form which follows the reporting verb.
Group them into lists on the white board accordingly

• + (that) + clause   [the "say" structure] e.g. He explained that he had already tried that
• + Direct Object + (that) + clause  [the "tell" structure] e.g. He convinced me that doing homework was worthwhile
• + direct object + to + infinitive      e.g. she reminded me to pack my toothbrush
• + gerund/-ing form [everything here can also be in the first group]  e.g. he admitted killing the King
• +to + Infinitive [for actions/requests/promises etc] e.g. they agreed to help with my application
• +preposition + gerund   e.g. I insisted on doing the washing up
• + direct object + preposition + gerund   e.g. They accused me of stealing from work

A fairly comprehensive list of reporting verbs and their structures can be found
here or here

Activity

Use a short clip of a film, a TV programme or a short video dialogue ideally one where a large variety of reporting verbs can be used. I often use this one as it has a huge variety of reporting verbs available although it is probably more suited to young adults or teenagers since the video is a mock police-interview of Sesame street character Grover (Elmer has been murdered).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q0V4TXozaE

Put the students into pairs and have one student from each pair leave the room (If this is not possible in your school you can alter this and do it as a whole class activity). Tell the remaining students they are going to watch a very important film (tell them to imagine it is a crucial scene in a film), but their friend has gone to collect your takeaway pizza from downstairs (or making popcorn or…), the remaining students need to watch and take detailed notes about what happens and especially what is said so that they can tell their friend when he/she comes back. Play the first half of the video (up to where the detective starts punching Grover), then pause and ask the rest of the class to come back in (you could introduce feedback before inviting the students back in if the watching students found the video difficult to understand). The students who saw the video then tell their partners what happened and what was said (using a wide variety of reporting verbs). The teacher monitors and makes corrections where errors are directly related to use of reporting verbs.
Students swap (the other students go outside) and the process is repeated with the second half of the video.

Follow-up

students work in pairs to produce a formal summary of the events (for the independent police complaints commission). They can then practise producing passive structures (for verbs which have a direct object) and other formal language (vocabulary, use of nouns to replace verbs etc). Encourage students to include the actions from video as well as the speech e.g. The suspect was offered some cigarettes, The suspect was assaulted by the interrogating officer.

Future Activities

During oral activities in class (particularly oral activities of a problem-solving nature) have students discuss in pairs. Then ask one person from each pair to stand up and move clockwise around the classroom (so that each standing student has moved to a new partner). Tell the students to feedback their ideas from their previous partners before adding anything new and perhaps reaching new conclusions. Remind students of the different reporting verbs they know to relate what was discussed in their previous group.

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