Putting the Pieces Together

Purpose: To practice conjunctions and reported speech; this activity can be done in a circle or in rows.

Preparation Time: None, except to think about grouping, e.g. circles, rows, procedure for passing; this activity assumes that conjunctions and reported speech have already been introduced.

Materials: Paper and pencils.

Preparation: No preparation is needed, unless you need to review conjunctions and reported speech yourself in order to review them with your students!

Notes:  

• Depending on the level of English, conjunctions could be as simple as and, but and or, or as complex as neither… nor, either…or, both… and and not only… but also.
• Reported speech refers to the structure we use to report what a person said. No quotation marks are used. If the reporting verb (ex. said) is in the simple past tense, the second verb will usually be in the past tense, too. Lower-level students could use the present tense in their reports.

Quoted speech: “I watch TV every day.”

Reported speech: She says she watches TV every day. (simple present)

Quoted speech: “I went to the store last night.”

Reported speech: She said she went to the store last night. (simple past tense)

Procedure:

1. Each person has a piece of paper and a pencil. Ask everyone to silently write the name of a famous person, or a person known to everyone in the class, at the top of the piece of paper. (If the teacher/tutor participates, they will have an example to use for modeling step two of this activity.)
2. Ask the students to fold the paper over to hide the name and pass it to the person next to them.
3. Without unfolding the new piece of paper, students then write the name of a second person below the original fold. They fold the paper and pass it on as before.
4. Students must now write in quotes what the first person said to the second person. Fold and pass.
5. Next, students write the reply, in quotes. Fold and pass.
6. Now write what happened as a result of the short conversation. Fold and pass.
7. Continue in this manner for all the items students need to write on their sheets of paper.
8. After the papers have been passed on for the final time, everyone unfolds the piece of paper they have. 
9. Allow time to prepare, as students must use the prompts on the paper to tell or write a short story using conjunctions and reported speech to sequence the parts of the story.
10. Teacher/tutor begins by telling their story and modeling correct use of conjunctions and reported speech. Use present tense for lower-level students and past tense for higher-level students.