Cambridge Delta Course LSA 4 – System – Grammar

Theo Navarro – Helping B2 learners use backshifting in reported speech. Page 3 of 10
Cambridge Delta Course
LSA 4 – System – Grammar

Helping B2 learners use backshifting in reported speech.





Candidate's name: Theo Navarro
Centre Number: GR108
Candidate Number: 07
Number of words: 2473



Contents
Introduction 3
1.1 He said that she says that they were doing. 3
Analysis 4
2.1 What is reported speech? 4
2.2 Backshifting 4
2.2.1 What is "Backshifting"? 4
2.2.2 Exceptions to backshifting 7
Issues and Suggestions for teaching 8
3.1 Learner confusion with the simplified rules presented in coursebooks and other materials. 8
3.2 Learners' confusion with the exceptions of backshifting 8
3.3 Learners being hesitant to produce reported speech due to fear of making mistakes 9
Bibliography 10







Introduction
He said that she says that they were doing.

This essay aims to examine the features of backshifting when using reported speech, as well as examining possible issues learners and teachers may have with it, and suggesting possible solutions to those issues.
The majority of the learners I have taught at B2 level have been aware that reported speech exists, as it is generally covered in previous levels, have issues with backshifting in both speaking and writing, mainly due to the discrepancies that they find between different coursebooks they use and different teachers they are exposed to.
The main confusion that I have noticed my learners having with reported speech is backshifting, with learners telling me that they are never sure of which tense to use, as what they hear in real life doesn't always match what their coursebooks tell them.
The CEFR states that learners should be able to "pass on detailed information reliably" (Schneider et al, 2004, p. 73 & 104), which people generally accomplish through reported speech.
Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman (1999, p. 687) further justify the inclusion of reported speech in the ESL class by stating that it is a major feature of everyday spoken interaction. It is for this reason, as well as the CEFR requirement listed above, and my own experiences with learners, that I believe that this is a topic of importance to learners.




Analysis
2.1 What is reported speech?

Reported speech is the relaying of one's words by a third party to another, not verbatim, either immediately after the utterance has occurred, or later on. Reported speech is not a simple repetition of the original speaker's words, but is a paraphrased version of the original utterance combined with reporting verbs (Alexander, 1988, p. 290).

2.2 Backshifting
2.2.1 What is "Backshifting"?

Reported speech is often presented in coursebooks alongside a conversion table that changes the tense used in the direct speech utterance to convert it to reported speech.
Backshifting could most simply be described as tenses being "moved back", with the most general rule being that direct speech in the present is converted to the past, and direct speech in the past being converted to past perfect (Alexander, 1988, p. 290).
The following table illustrates how backshifting is normally presented to learners:
Verb form in direct speech
Verb form in reported speech
Present Simple
I still want to be in the programme.
Past Simple
She said she still wanted to be in the programme.
Present Continuous
I'm having another operation on Friday
Past Continuous
She said that she was having another operation on Friday
Present Perfect Simple
I've already had one operation.
Past Perfect
She told me she'd already had one operation
Past Simple
I was in a car accident.
Past Perfect
She said that she'd been in a car accident.
am/is/are going to
They're going to start filming soon.
was/were going to
I told her they were going to start filing soon.
Reproduced in part from Face2Face Intermediate Student's Book (Redston & Cunningham, 2006, p. 139)


Lewis (1986, pp. 71-72) maintains that backshifting is not the neat system described above, but depends on the level of remoteness between the reporter and the described event. For example, He said he knows and He said he knew are equally correct, with the only difference being the reporter's focus on either the present state of "knowing" in the former, or the fact that the utterance was heard in the past, as in the latter.
Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman (1999, p. 690), however, maintain that backshifting only occurs "when the main verb is in a past tense; otherwise the tense remains as in the original quotation" and say that whether the event being reported is in the past when the report is being made has no bearing on the tense. This can be seen in the examples they present, such as:

Original sentence: "I left yesterday." (= present perfect)
Report:
Simple present – no backshifting :
She says that she left yesterday.
Present perfect – no backshifting :
She has said that she left yesterday.
Simple past + backshifting to past perfect:
She said that she had left yesterday/the day before.
Reproduced from (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999, p. 689)

Thornbury (2011) also disagrees with Alexander (1988, p.290), maintaining that direct speech is more common in spoken discourse than reported speech, and that backshifting tends to be ignored even when reported speech is used. Thornbury (op cit.) also disagrees with Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman (1999) by stating that "the backshift rule operates only if there is temporal distance." He maintains that past tenses are used because of temporal distance between the original event and the reporting. He illustrates this with the following examples: His people love him (now) and His people loved him (then).
N.B. Thornbury's example above was taken from an article on the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, with the backshifted utterance being taken from the print-version of the article, and the non-backshifted version being taken from the online-version publication.



2.2.2 Exceptions to backshifting

One of the main factors contributing to the disagreement between authors on backshifting is the lack of standardized rules for exceptions. Celce-Murcia & Freeman (1999, p. 690) state that research into the topic hasn't yet been able to provide us with many of these rules, though three standard ones have emerged.
Perceived General Truths
Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman (1999, p. 690) reference the types of examples Thornbury provided us with above as exceptions from backshifting, maintaining that situations such as Thornbury presented are actually about the speaker's perception of truth, and not actual fact. They maintain that backshifting does not occur when we perceive something to be generally true or when "we cannot imagine a state of affairs in the world other than the one we have mentally committed ourselves to." This means that to know which of the examples Thornbury provided us is correct, we would need more insight into the speaker's view on the issue than we are provided with in his article.
The state or event remains true at the time of reporting
Take the following example of direct speech: I am reading for a degree in English. The table presented in section 2.2.1 would dictate that this would become He said that he was reading for a degree in English if it were to be reported, however, "reading for a degree" is an action that takes years to complete. If the direct speech were to be reported before the action was completed, it might be more correct to report it as He said he is reading for a degree in English than to backshift the present continuous to past continuous, as the event would still be true at the time of reporting.
"[P]resent tense is retained in reported clauses when the author wishes to emphasize that the state or event in question still holds true at the time of reporting and/or is not presented as something temporary." (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999, p. 690)
Immediate reports
Reported speech also occurs almost immediately after the original utterance, such as in noisy atmospheres where not all interlocutors can hear each other properly. When this occurs, the utterance will usually be reported in the original tense (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999, p. 691). For example:
A: I want to go home.
B: Already?
C: What did she say?
B: She says she wants to go home.




Issues and Suggestions for teaching
3.1 Learner confusion with the simplified rules presented in coursebooks and other materials.

While it is clear from my reading that the tables presented in coursebooks are an oversimplification of backshifting, I do still believe that we should use these tables to help our learners, and to then build on that knowledge. Learners will be overwhelmed and confused if we try to teach them everything about backshifting (not to mention the other aspects of reported speech) all at once, and this will be counter-productive.
Sections from coursebooks to introduce the basic rules of backshifting in reported speech.

E.g. Face2Face Intermediate Unit 11A (Redston & Cunningham, 2006, pp. 84-85, 139). This unit uses two listening texts, one in direct speech and the other with that speech being reported, to illustrate backshift and uses an inductive table (the key of which was provided in section 2.2.1) to help learners figure out the rule. While I do like this unit, the context used (an actress informing a studio of her injuries and being turned down a role) is difficult for most learners to relate to real life.
Supplementary materials to reinforce those rules and give learners the opportunity for controlled practice using them in written forms.

E.g. English Grammar in Use, 4th ed., unit 47 (Murphy, 2012, pp. 94-95). As with all other books in Cambridge's best-selling "In Use" series, the unit consists of a page of notes and a corresponding page of tasks. The unit is basic, and provides information similar to the Face2Face unit above, and consists of two tasks: a basic conversion task (from direct to reported speech) to reinforce the rules, and another task which has the learners filling in responses with information contrary to that first given to them, and using their imaginations to fill in the details. The activities here are not contextualized, which would be their primary weakness, but have value in terms of the very controlled practice that it affords learners to help them build confidence with the simplified rules of backshifting and focus on accuracy.
Supplementary materials to reinforce those rules and give learners the opportunity for freer practice using them in spoken forms.

E.g. The Grammar Book, Ch.33 ex.2 (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999, pp. 709-710).
This activity has one learner asking the other a question, with a third learner reporting the second learners' response, or with two reporters, one reporting the question, and the other reporting the answer. This is not the most realistic activity for learners, but allows them more freedom in the topics they choose and they types of responses that are given, allowing much more varied language to come out of the activity.


3.2 Learners' confusion with the exceptions of backshifting

I believe that in order for people to learn the exceptions to a rule, they must first learn the actual rules in question; hence why section 3.1 was presented before.
Once learners feel confident using the simple backshifting, they can then be exposed to authentic materials which contain examples of exceptions, and can inductively discover the rules of exception. Thornbury (1999, p. 54) maintains that inductive learning helps learners match discovered rules with their "existing mental structures," and requires "a greater degree of cognitive depth" from the learners while processing the exceptions.
Having learners discover the exceptions themselves would also give them a sense of accomplishment, and allow them to absorb the information in their own ways. The collaborative nature of inductive tasks also opens the door to peer-learning, which reinforces the learners' sense of community and self-reliance, and promotes learner autonomy (Thornbury, 1999, p. 54). I believe autonomy is important while learning about exceptions to rules in particular, as it is impossible to learn about every exception to rules in English in the classroom, and learners will need to do when using the language in real life.
An activity focusing on two excerpts of a popular television programme or movie, for example, would be well suited to this. If one of the excerpts is centered around the direct utterances, with the second excerpt being about those utterances being reported (which is common in media, mainly to highlight the comedy of misinterpretation or over exaggeration) the learners will be able to see the context in which the reported utterances are being made, as well as see the level of remoteness between the reporter and the original utterance. Learners could focus on trying to convert utterances from the first excerpt into reported speech, and then check their answers with the second excerpt, and reflect on the differences between their predictions and reality. While I have been unable to find activities such as this in published books (most probably due to how quickly specific television programmes and movies fall in and out of popularity), websites such as "Movie Segments to Assess Grammar Goals" (http://moviesegmentstoassessgrammargoals.blogspot.gr/2008/09/while-you-were-sleeping-reported-speech.html) are common and include many activities which can be used and adapted.
Learners could then use an activity such as "Tact" from "Intermediate Communication Games" (Hadfield, 1990, pp. xxii, 101-103) in which the learners roleplay a community of neighbours trying to resolve a dispute between two neighbours who will not speak to each other, but speak through the other members of the community who have to report their message. This is a humorous, yet imaginable context which has the learners using the language to accomplish a goal (problem resolution), which the majority of learners will find motivating.


3.3 Learners being hesitant to produce reported speech due to fear of making mistakes

There is a big difference between learners being able to comprehend and being able to produce. My own experiences with the Russian language, for example, have shown me that the divide between receptive and productive language can be massive.
The first thing that teachers can do to help reduce this fear in their learners to avoid using immediate correction strategies, as learners who are afraid of being inaccurate will only have their fears confirmed if they are corrected while speaking. Delayed correction strategies would be better for classes which contain learners such as these, and correction strategies that have learners working on the mistakes collaboratively instead of having the answer provided to them by the teacher would go a step further to help build the learners' confidence and reduce their fears (Paton & Wilkins, 2009, p. 158).
When I encounter these learners in my own class, I tend to give the learners more controlled practice with the target language, such as those found in "Grammar Games and Activities for Teachers" (Watcyn-Jones, 1995, p. 51) (an activity which has learners matching direct speech sentence halves and then orally converting them to reported speech) create logical connections to help build their confidence and "gain control of the form without the added pressure and distraction of trying to use the form for communication" (Celce-Murcia & Hilles, 1988, p. 27).
Once the learners have gained confidence in their mastery of the rules and exceptions of backshifting, they are then ready for more communicative activities such as the "People Used to Believe" activity found in "Grammar Practice Activities" (Ur, 1988, p. 139), which has learners contrast scientific beliefs in the past with those of the modern world, and using reported speech to report historical beliefs. Ur even includes a variation to personalize the topic and further contextualize the language by replacing the topic of scientific knowledge with the learners' own youthful misconceptions compared with what they know today, which is the variant I would personally choose to use in class as it builds on the learners' own experiences.


Bibliography
Alexander. (1988). Longman English Grammar. Longman.
Celce-Murcia, & Hilles. (1988). Techniques and Resources in Teaching Grammar. Oxford University Press.
Celce-Murcia, M., & Larsen-Freeman, D. (1999). The Grammar Book. Heinle & Heinle.
Hadfield, J. (1990). Intermediate Communication Games. Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd.
Lewis, M. (1986). The English Verb. Language Teaching Publications.
Murphy, R. (2012). English Grammar In Use (Fourth ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Paton, A., & Wilkins, M. (Eds.). (2009). Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages: A Teacher Education Handbook. McGraw-Hill Education.
Redston, C., & Cunningham, G. (2006). Any messages? In Face2Face Intermediate Student's Book (pp. 84-85, 139). Cambridge University Press.
Schneider, Peter, Lenz , & Günther. (2004). A bank of descriptors for self-assessment in European Language Portfolios. Council of Europe, Language Policy Division.
Thornbury, S. (1999). How to Teach Grammar. Pearson Education Limited.
Thornbury, S. (2011, March 6). B is for Backshift. Retrieved from An A-Z of ELT: https://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2011/03/06/b-is-for-backshift/
Ur, P. (1988). Grammar Practice Activities. Cambridge University Press.
van Ek, J. A., & Trim, J. L. (1998). Threshold 1990. Cambridge University Press.
Watcyn-Jones, P. (1995). Grammar Games and Activities for Teachers. Penguin Books Limited.