Over the past few weeks, students at SMK Muhammadiyah 7 in Gondanglegi, East Java, have been focusing on the differences between direct and reported speech. When students have English class first thing in the morning, like X MM 1 (pictured), they typically are still easing into their day and find it difficult to get motivated to learn English. In an attempt to mitigate this, ETA Lindsay Smith and Bu Khusnul separated the class into groups for a “Telephone” activity.

At first, Lindsay wrote a phrase about herself or Bu Khusnul on the back of the board, like “Bu Khusnul loves to cook” as an example of direct speech. She then whispered the phrase to a student from each of the groups. Students from each group whispered what they heard to the person standing next to them, taking care to change the phrase into reported speech (i.e., “Miss Lindsay said that Bu Khusnul loves to cook”). When each group finished, the last person to hear the message ran up to the whiteboard and wrote down what they heard. This often elicited uproars of laughter from the groups as they compared what they heard to what Lindsay initially wrote on the board. After this activity, students felt energized to carry on their day and continue learning and practicing English.

Lindsay Smith is currently teaching at SMK Muhammadiyah 7 Gondanglegi near Malang, East Java.