How to Teach Reported Speech
Reported speech is taught badly more often than almost any other structure, and the reason is that it is usually taught as a shifting exercise: move the tense back one, change here to there, change yesterday to the day before. Learners pass the exercise and then never use the structure to report anything.
Why bother
This guide is about teaching it as what it is - what you say when you tell somebody what somebody else said - and about the two decisions that make the difference: when to backshift, and what to do with reported questions.
1. Start from a real report, not from a rule
Before any table of shifts, create something worth reporting. Tell two learners a short piece of news quietly, or send them out and back with a message. Then ask the class: what did she say?
Take the answers as they come, including the wrong ones, and write three or four on the board. You now have the target structure on the board in the learners' own words, and the lesson is about repairing it rather than introducing it.
This also shows them the point of the structure within the first three minutes, which a tense table never does.
In practice
If you begin with the rule, learners learn a transformation. If you begin with a message, they learn a way of speaking.
2. Teach the reporting verb before the tense shift
Said, told, asked, explained, complained, admitted, promised, suggested. The choice of verb carries most of the meaning in a real report, and it is where learners sound most obviously like a textbook.
Teach the two patterns that trip everybody up, side by side: he told me that ... takes a person, he said that ... does not. He said me is the single commonest error in this area at B1 and it is worth one minute of explicit attention.
Then add one verb with a different pattern - he suggested going, he promised to come - so learners see early that reporting verbs are not interchangeable.
In practice
Put said and told me at the two ends of the board and add sentences under each. Learners see the pattern before they hear the rule.
3. Teach backshift as a choice, not a law
The rule learners are usually given - move the tense back one - is not what speakers do. We backshift when the reporting verb is in the past and the thing said is finished, or over, or no longer true.
When it is still true, fluent speakers very often do not shift: She said she lives in Kandy is normal English, and so is He told me he's coming tonight. Teach both, and teach the question that decides it: is it still true now?
Say plainly that examinations usually expect the shift. Learners can do both: shift when a paper asks, choose when they speak. Hiding the real usage from them produces learners who correct native speakers.
In practice
One question decides most cases: is it still true? If yes, shifting is optional. If no, shift.
4. Do time and place words only when they are needed
Yesterday - the day before, here - there, this - that, tomorrow - the next day. These change for one reason only: because the report is being made in another place or at another time, so the original word would now point at the wrong thing.
Demonstrate it instead of listing it. Say something with here and today, then report it in the corridor the next day, and ask what has to change and why. Learners who see the reason remember it; learners given the list remember about half of it.
If you report a message in the same room a minute later, nothing changes. Show that too - it stops learners changing words that need no changing, which is a real examination error.
In practice
A word only changes when it would now point to the wrong time or the wrong place. That is the whole rule.
5. Teach reported questions separately, and expect trouble
Reported questions are a different structure and deserve their own stage, or their own lesson. Two changes happen at once: the word order returns to subject-verb, and the auxiliary do disappears. Where do you live? becomes He asked me where I lived.
The commonest error is keeping the question order: He asked me where did I live. Drill it in the direction learners will need it - give a question aloud, they report it - rather than only on paper.
Then add yes or no questions with if or whether: Are you coming? - She asked if I was coming. Learners who have met only wh- questions produce nothing when the question has no question word.
In practice
Write one wrong sentence on the board - He asked me where did I live - and let the class repair it. They remember their own repair.
6. Finish with a task that needs reporting to work
Practice is not a gap-fill. Use a task where reporting is the only way to get the information across: a rumour passed along a line, an interview reported to a third person, a message taken for somebody who was absent, or a discussion summarised by a note-taker.
Give the reporting verbs on the board and require three different ones. Without that, everything comes back as said, and the vocabulary half of the lesson disappears.
Collect four sentences from what you hear, two correct and two not, and put them on the board unnamed at the end. The class repairs them. That is the correction stage, and it is where the said me and the where did I live finally go.
In practice
If learners could do the task without reporting anybody's words, it is not practice for this lesson.
A sixty-minute shape for a reported speech lesson
One way to put the six steps above into a single lesson. The lesson plan on this site follows this shape, with the stages timed.
| Stage | What happens |
|---|---|
| Lead-in (5 min) | A message carried and delivered. What did she say? Answers go on the board as they come. |
| Clarify meaning (8 min) | Why we report: we were not there, or we are telling somebody else. Concept questions on one sentence. |
| Reporting verbs (7 min) | Said and told me contrasted. One verb with a different pattern added. |
| Backshift (12 min) | Guided discovery from the board sentences. The is it still true? question. Examination expectations stated. |
| Controlled practice (10 min) | Spoken transformation first, then five written sentences. Check in pairs before the class. |
| Reported questions (8 min) | Word order and the disappearing do. One wrong sentence repaired by the class. |
| Freer practice (8 min) | A task where reporting is the only way to pass the information on. Three different reporting verbs required. |
| Feedback (2 min) | Four sentences on the board, two right and two wrong, nobody named. |
Six mistakes that make the lesson fail
| The mistake | What it looks like, and the fix |
|---|---|
| Starting with the tense table | Learners learn to shift tenses and still cannot report what a friend told them. Begin with a message somebody has to pass on, and get the structure onto the board from the learners. |
| Teaching backshift as compulsory | Learners then produce She said she lived in Kandy about somebody who still lives there, and hear natural English as wrong. Teach the is it still true? question and say openly what examinations expect. |
| Ignoring said and told | He said me survives for years because nobody spent a minute on it. Contrast the two patterns explicitly, early, with examples under each. |
| Only teaching said | Reports in real life use told, asked, explained, complained, admitted, promised. Put four on the board and require three of them in the final task. |
| Putting reported questions in the same stage | Two changes at once - word order and the lost auxiliary - is too much beside backshift. Give questions their own stage or their own lesson. |
| Practising only in writing | The error learners need to lose is one of word order under time pressure, which only appears when they speak. Do the spoken transformation before the written one. |
Questions teachers ask
Is backshift really optional?
When the reporting verb is past and the reported information is still true, yes: She said she lives in Kandy and She said she lived in Kandy are both correct, and the first is very common in speech. When the information is finished or no longer true, the shift is normal. Examinations usually want the shift, so teach both and say which is which.
Which tenses do not shift back?
Past perfect has nowhere further to go, so it stays. Modals would, could, might, should and ought to stay. Must usually becomes had to when it means obligation. And nothing shifts after a present reporting verb: he says he is tired.
Should I teach the whole tense table at once?
No. Take present simple and present continuous into the past in the first lesson, add past simple and will in the second, and leave modals until learners are reporting confidently. A complete table on day one is copied, not learnt.
How do I teach it in a class of forty?
Everything here works in pairs. The lead-in message needs two learners; the transformation drill is teacher to whole class; the final task is pairs or groups of three reporting to each other. Nobody has to come to the front.
What about reported orders and requests?
They belong in a later lesson: He told me to wait, She asked me not to be late - verb plus object plus infinitive, and no that. Adding them to a lesson that already covers statements, questions and backshift guarantees that something is lost.
Is there a ready-made lesson for this?
Yes. The reported speech lesson plan on this site follows the shape above, with timings, concept-checking questions, anticipated problems and a printable worksheet with answers.
About this guide
Written by RCF English to the RCF English international standard: levelled by the CEFR, original throughout, and suitable for classrooms in any country. Last reviewed 22 September 2026.
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Reported Speech ESL Lesson Plan (B1, 60 minutes)
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