Home | Crosswords | Word Searches | Flash Cards | Verbs | Songs | Creative Writing | Work Sheets | Phonics | ABCs Survival English | Business ESL | ESL for Adults | ESL Articles | Lesson Plans | Holiday Worksheet | ESL Jobs
Adding Nuance to 'Say'
Match #2:
Hopefully, your students have mastered the introductory soccer match and the mechanics of changing to the past tense is second nature. There are a lot of ways that add extra information to refine how we report speech. That's what this soccer match is about.
He yelled that he wanted to go home.
She bragged that she got straight A's.
She whispered that the teacher was looking.
He confessed that he stole the diamond.
They denied that they cheated on the test.
She complained that the soup was rotten.
We can add information about the way in which something was said by replacing "said" with one of the following:
yelled
shouted
screamed
blurted
whimpered
moaned
grumbled
muttered
stuttered
whined
whispered
gasped
hollered
cried
bellowed
We can also add information about the nature of what is being said by using the list below. "He confessed that" adds the extra information that what was done was something bad. "She complained that" add the extra information that she didn't like it.
confessed
denied
admitted
complained
bragged
predicted
guessed
doubted
surmised
stated
announced
lied
preached
joked
For this soccer match we have choosen 6 expressions to practice: yelled, complained, denied, confessed, whispered, and bragged.
Resources
Introductory Worksheets
Soccer Match Cards
Soccer Cards for Brag and Complain
Soccer Cards for Whisper and Yell
Match #1: The Basic Five and 'That' Noun Clauses:
Match #3: Embedded Questions and Reported Speech
Match #5: Threats and Promises