Reported speech is rarely hard because of one rule — it's hard because it asks students to apply three transformations at the same time: shift the tense back, change the pronouns and possessives, and often change time/place words too ("today" becomes "that day," "here" becomes "there"). Teaching all three simultaneously from the first example is what produces reported sentences that are wrong in two or three places at once instead of just one.
1. Isolate tense backshift first, with pronouns already matching
Start with first-person quotes reported by the same person ("I am tired," she said → She said she was tired) so the pronoun doesn't have to change — only the tense does. This lets students focus entirely on the present→past, past→past perfect, will→would pattern before pronoun-switching adds a second variable.
2. Add pronoun and possessive changes as a separate step
Once backshift is automatic, move to third-person reporting ("I have lost my keys," he said → He said he had lost his keys), where I→he and my→his now have to change too. Naming this explicitly as "step two" — not folding it into the first lesson — keeps students from having to solve two problems in one sentence too early.
3. Treat reported questions and reported commands as their own structures
Reported questions drop the auxiliary and question word order ("Where do you live?" → She asked where I lived, not "where did I live"), and reported commands use told/asked + object + to-infinitive ("Close the door," she said → She told me to close the door). Both are different enough from reporting statements that they deserve their own practice block rather than being mixed into general reported-speech drilling.
Common mistakes and how to catch them
- Keeping question word order in reported questions: "She asked where did I live." — the single most common reported-speech error. Drill the word-order shift with 2-3 board examples, physically crossing out "did" each time to show it disappears.
- Forgetting to backshift the tense: "He said he is tired" instead of "he was tired" — usually means step 1 (see above) wasn't drilled to automaticity before pronouns were added on top of it.
- Wrong reporting verb: using "said" where "told" is needed ("She said me to wait") — told always takes a direct object (told + someone), said doesn't. Teach them as two different sentence patterns, not interchangeable synonyms.
A 50-minute lesson shape that works
- 5 min — Warm-up: teacher reports something a student said earlier in the week, class identifies what changed.
- 10 min — Tense backshift only, same-person reporting so pronouns don't change.
- 10 min — Add third-person reporting: pronouns and possessives shift too.
- 10 min — Reported questions: word-order drill, crossing out "did/do/does."
- 10 min — Reported commands: told/asked + object + to-infinitive.
- 5 min — Freer practice: report a real classmate's answer to a question you ask aloud.
Free worksheets for this lesson
- Reported Speech: Present Simple to Past Simple – Grammar (B1) — isolates tense backshift with minimal pronoun changes.
- Reported Speech: Present Simple to Past Simple – Practice (B1) — controlled backshift practice.
- Reported Questions and Commands (Reported Speech) – Grammar (B1) — reported questions and told/asked + to-infinitive commands.
- Reported Questions and Commands (Reported Speech) Practice – Grammar (B1) — word-order-focused practice for reported questions.
- Reported Questions and Commands (Reported Speech): Instructions from a School Trip Leader – Reading (B1) — receptive practice in context.
- Reported Questions and Commands (Reported Speech) – Writing (B1) — freer production to close the lesson.
Browse the full set of grammar worksheets or filter by B1 level in the full catalog.