Lesson video

Hello everyone.

My name is Mrs. Riley.

And I'm here today to teach you some grammar.

In today's lesson, we're going to be focusing on speech.

You may have noticed when you're doing your reading, that there's lots of speech included.

So this will help us to read with lots of expression.

But also by the end of today's lesson, you can start to include speech in your writing, which will be very impressive.

So let's get started.

By the end of today's lesson, you will be able to identify inverted commas in a speech sentence.

These are our key words for today's lesson.

That means these are words that are really important to our learning, and that are going to come up again and again.

So first of all, let's just practise saying these words out loud.

I'm going to say each one, and I'd like you to repeat it back to me.

Are you ready? Here we go.

Direct speech.

Inverted commas.

That one's really important.

Let's say it again.

Inverted commas.

Well done.

And finally, signal.

Well done.

Let's find out what these words mean.

Direct speech is the term used for a character speaking out loud in a text.

So perhaps we could do this action.

Direct speech.

Because it's when a character is speaking.

Inverted commas are a pair of punctuation marks that signal direct speech to the reader.

So a pair is when we have two of something, like a pair of socks.

So we've got a pair of punctuation marks that we're going to use today.

And to signal is to show or direct attention to.

If you imagine you are playing a game with a friend where you're going to play a trick on someone, and you were hiding and you were waiting to play the trick, you were waiting for a signal from your friend.

You're waiting for them to show you or direct your attention to the fact that you're ready.

So that's what a signal is.

Okay, so in our learning today, we have two learning cycles.

The first learning cycle is, what is direct speech? It's something to do with talking.

But let's find out what direct speech is in a bit more detail.

Are you ready to listen to part of a story? Have you got your listening ears ready? Perhaps just turn them on, make sure they're ready.

Okay, here we go.

"Tumbling out of bed, Jerry fell to the floor with a thump.

'Ouch!' He mumbled angrily.

It had happened again.

It always seemed to happen when he'd had a bad dream.

'I'm never sleeping in that bed again!' he snapped, as he rubbed his elbow." Well done.

That was really good listening.

I could see lots of people listening very carefully.

Okay, so let's just have a little think about what's happening here.

So the main character is a boy called Jerry.

And he's fallen out of bed, and I think it's because he had a bad dream.

Another word for a bad dream is a, does anyone know? Shout it out.

That's right.

A nightmare.

Have any of you ever had a bad dream or a nightmare? Yeah, me too.

Sometimes they can be quite scary.

It's not very nice having bad dreams. But sometimes dreams can be really lovely, like a dream that you could fly or something like that.

But poor old Jerry has had a bad dream.

And because he's had a bad dream, it's made him fall out of bed and he's hurt his elbow.

So I think he's feeling a bit fed up.

Because number one, he's had a bad dream or a nightmare.

And number two, it's made him fall out of bed, and hurt himself.

So two bad things have happened to poor old Jerry in this story.

Does the character say anything in this part of the story? Is there anything that Jerry actually says? Pause the video while you have a little think about that.

Well done.

You might have noticed that there are two separate parts in this story that Jerry says.

The first thing he says is, "Ouch!" He mumbled angrily.

He said something that he actually says.

And the other thing that Jerry says is, "I'm never sleeping in that bed again." So there are two parts of direct speech in this story.

The term for a character speaking out loud in a text is direct speech.

Let's just check you're listening.

The term for a character speaking out loud in a text is direct? Well done.

Direct speech.

One of our keywords.

So here we can see the story again, and we can see that "Ouch," and "I'm never sleeping in that bed again," are both direct speech.

They are parts that the character is speaking out loud.

"Ouch" is direct speech.

And "I'm never sleeping in that bed again" is direct speech.

These are both things that Jerry is speaking, or saying out loud.

Okay, let's look at the next part of the story.

Now, as I read this part of the story, and you're doing your very careful listening, I want you to see if you can spot any more direct speech.

Any bits that the characters are saying or speaking.

Are you ready? "When he stomped into the kitchen, Jerry's mom knew something was wrong.

'What's the matter?' She asked.

'Nothing,' he replied with a frown.

'I can see something's happened,' she continued, putting an arm around the boy." As I was reading that, did you see any direct speech? Any parts of my story that the characters were saying out loud or speaking? Perhaps pause the video if you want a little bit of time to just see if you can identify any direct speech.

Well done if you spotted any.

So we've got, "What's the matter?" she asked.

This is something that Jerry's mom is saying to him.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

And then Jerry replies, "Nothing," he replied with a frown.

And then his mom says again, "I can see something's happened," she continued, putting an arm around the boy.

So we've got three parts of speech.

Two things the mom says, "What's the matter?" And "I can see something's happened." And one part that Jerry says, which is, "Nothing." That he says with a frown.

Can you all do a frown? Well done.

Direct speech really helps us to learn about the characters.

In this story, we have two characters.

They are Jerry, the little boy, and Jerry's mom.

We can learn about all these things through direct speech.

We can learn how a character feels, how they behave, how they speak, and how they react.

Let's think about Jerry's mom in the story.

From her direct speech, how does she feel, behave, speak, and react? Let's have a look at what she says again.

So she says, well, after Jerry stomped into the room, she says, "What's the matter?" And then he says, "Nothing." And then Jerry's mom says, "I can see something's happened." So from that speech, how do you think Jerry's mom feels? How is she behaving? How is she reacting to Jerry stomping into the room and saying nothing's the matter? Pause the video while you have a little think about that.

Or maybe you might want to just tell someone what you think if someone's close by.

Well done.

I think that because she notices straight away that Jerry is not okay, she obviously knows him very well.

People in your family or your close friends often do know you very well.

So she notices straight away that he's not okay because she says, "What's the matter?" And she obviously feels a bit concerned or worried for him, and then she can encourages him to open up because she doesn't just say, when he says "Nothing," saying, "Okay, well let's get on with our day." She says, "I can see something's happened." So she's trying to encourage him to talk about what's happened.

Now let's think about Jerry.

From his direct speech, how do you think he feels? How is he behaving? How is he speaking? Or how is he reacting to his mom? So just a reminder that Jerry's speech is, "Nothing," he replied with a frown.

So again, pause the video, and think about what can we learn from Jerry from that one word, "Nothing," he replied with a frown.

Off you go.

Well done.

I think that Jerry seems angry and defiant.

He wants to shut down the conversation with his mom.

So perhaps he's feeling very upset.

If he wasn't feeling so angry and defiant when his mom said to him, "Jerry, what's the matter?" He would say to her, "Oh, well I had a bad dream last night and I fell out of bed." But because he's saying "Nothing," he obviously doesn't want to open up about how he's feeling.

So from that one word, "nothing," that one part of direct speech that he's saying out loud, we can tell a lot about his character and that is why speech is so useful to include in our writing.

Now we're going to listen to a later part of the story.

Have you got your listening ears ready? Here we go.

"'Time for bed, Jerry!' his mom shouted.

This was the moment he'd been dreading.

'Please, please, please don't let it happen again,' the terrified boy said desperately.

He lay down on his pillow.

He turned off the light.

There was no way he'd be able to drift off to sleep." What is each character's direct speech in this part of the story? Perhaps you could get your pointing fingers, and you could try to point at, first of all, what does Jerry's mom say? What does Jerry's mom say? Do some pointing.

Well done.

Good pointing.

The mom says, "Time for bed, Jerry!" And we can see his mom shouted.

That's who says it.

But the bit that she says is "Time for bed, Jerry!" And now can you get your pointing fingers ready? What does Jerry say? Show me some pointing.

Well done.

He says, "Please, please, please don't let it happen again." The terrified boy said desperately.

So again, the bit that he says is, "Please, please, please don't let it happen again." Using clues from his direct speech to answer, how does Jerry feel about it being time for bed? So again, we're looking at the speech, and seeing how it can tell us so much about a character.

So this is our check for understanding.

So I would like you to pause the video while you answer this question.

Use clues from the direct speech.

How does Jerry feel about it being time for bed? Pause the video now.

Okay, well done.

You might have said something like this.

Jerry is very frightened about going to bed.

He repeats the word please three times.

Please, please, please, as if he's talking to someone powerful enough to stop his bad dream from happening again.

Okay, it's time for your first task in today's lesson.

I would like you to read the section of the story carefully.

Then I would like you to find each example of direct speech.

Remember that's the bit the character is saying.

Then I would like you to draw a box around each example of direct speech.

Here's the section of the story you're looking at.

"He could see the towering, iron gates again.

The same ones as before.

And then, he heard the same terrifying noises before.

'Unlock the gates!' the booming voice shouted.

'I don't want to come in!' Jerry begs, just like last night.

'You have no choice,' the evil menace replied with a cackle.

There was no way out.

There was no escape plan.

There was nothing the poor boy could do." It's a bit scary, isn't it? I can see why he's so scared of his dream.

So this is obviously happening in Jerry's nightmare.

So in this nightmare, what is the part that the characters are saying out loud? Where's the direct speech? Can you draw a box around every example of direct speech? Pause the video now.

Okay, well done.

Let's look at the answers.

The direct speech are, the parts of direct speech are, "Unlock the gates." That's what the scary villain, whoever it is in the nightmare says.

The booming voice shouted.

So "Unlock the gates," is my first direct speech.

And then Jerry replies, "I don't want to come in." And then the evil, whoever it is, replies, "You have no choice." So there, those were the three examples of direct speech.

Well done if you spotted any of those.

Okay, it's time to have a look at our second learning cycle, all about inverted commas, which was one of our keywords.

Before we do that, can everyone just maybe have a little stretch, maybe a little jiggle just to wake ourselves up, ready for the next part of our learning? Okay, are you ready? Here we go.

Inverted commas.

There is punctuation that can signal any direct speech to the reader.

So up until this point in the lesson, we've been looking and scanning and reading the words to try to find the direct speech.

But with this punctuation, it signals, which means shows or draws our attention, to where the direct speech is.

So if we use our inverted commas, it's much easier and quicker to find the direct speech.

Here are our inverted commas.

What do they look like? Have a little think.

Can you see? Perhaps you might quickly, perhaps on your hand, you could try and quickly draw them.

Might be a bit tickly on your hand.

Well done.

So sometimes you might have heard that people call these the "66 and the 99." And that's because as you drew it on your hand, you might have noticed it's a little bit like drawing two little sixes and filling in the holes and then two little nines.

So sometimes people say, call it a "66 and a 99," as a way of remembering what they are.

But that's not the real name for them.

People also might call them speech marks.

And again, that might be helpful, a helpful way to remember what this piece of punctuation is.

But again, it's not the real name for them.

The real name is inverted commas.

Let's just say that together.

My turn.

Your turn.

Inverted commas.

Well done.

Inverted commas.

So that's what this piece of punctuation is.

Let's check what we've just learned.

Which of these punctuation marks are inverted commas? You've got four options, A, B, C, or D.

Pause the video while you try to identify the inverted commas.

Well done.

It is D! The first one, A was a question mark.

B was a comma, C was an exclamation mark, but D is the inverted commas.

You might have noticed it was like the little tiny 66 or 99.

But remember the real word for these are inverted commas.

Inverted commas are useful because they make it clear to the reader where the direct speech is.

Remember the direct speech is what the character is saying.

So let's look at this part of the story again.

And now let's see if, so can you see it right there? When we look at that piece of writing, I can't straight away point to where the direct speech is, because there's nothing to signal, there's nothing to show me.

So if I want to find it, I'm going to have to read it carefully.

Whereas now, look, when I add the inverted commas.

Oh! There they are for that first part of speech, "Unlock the gates." So you'll see the inverted commas there, a pair, and one of them goes at the start, unlock the gates, and one of them goes at the end of the direct speech.

So now I can see straight away where that direct speech is, because the inverted commas are signalling where it is.

Here's the next part, I don't want to come in.

That's the part that Jerry is saying.

And again, it's much easier to spot, now that the inverted commas are around the speech.

"You have no choice," the evil menace replied with a cackle.

Again, now I can see straight away, "you have no choice" is the direct speech.

So we can see how useful inverted commas are.

So let's check what we've just learned.

Where should the inverted commas be placed here? Listen first to this passage because it's a new passage from our story.

"'I don't want to come in,' Jerry pleaded, clenching his fists so hard that they turned white.

'Please don't make me!' he continued.

As he searched desperately around him for a way out, he spotted a staircase.

'I, I, I think you've got the wrong person!' he stammered, thinking quickly about his escape plan." So there are three, this is a clue.

There are three parts of direct speech there that Jerry is saying out loud.

Could you pause the video and perhaps point, or you could even draw where the inverted commas go.

Draw in the air.

Off you go.

Well done.

So the first thing Jerry says is, "I don't want to come in!" The second thing Jerry says is, "Please don't make me." And the third thing Jerry says is, "I, I, I think you've got the wrong person!" And we can see now we've added our inverted commas.

We can see how useful they are because I can now see straight away because of that signal, where the direct speech is.

And if I was reading this story, because I like to read with lots of expression, 'cause that makes our reading more exciting, where there's inverted commas, where there's speech, I might do a different voice for a character, or I might do a bit more expression in my voice of how I think they're saying it.

So for example, "Please don't make me." I'm saying it in a way that Jerry feels scared.

So I'm saying it in that way to try and, so almost it's a bit like being an actor.

We're doing a bit of acting when we do our reading.

So there are the three parts of direct speech.

The parts that Jerry is speaking or saying out loud.

It's easier for the reader to understand each character when they can clearly see which direct speech they say.

Here's this passage again.

We've looked at this passage before, so we can see straight away "unlock the gates, I don't want to come in, you have no choice." We can see straight away because of that signal of those inverted commas, where the direct speech is.

So let's think about this now.

Let's see what we can understand about the character from their speech.

Okay, so we have got the first part of direct speech is unlock the gates.

And this is what the evil person or villain in this nightmare is saying.

And this shows us that this is a command.

Unlock the gates.

So this shows they are controlling the situation.

They are in control.

We can then see from the next part of direct speech, "I don't want to come in," that Jerry is honest with the evil character and that he's frightened of him.

That's why he doesn't want to come in.

And then from this next part, you have no choice, we see that this character will not give in.

So we can tell a lot about the characters from the speech that they are saying.

Okay, let's check what we've just learned.

Which pair of adjectives could we describe the evil character with from this direct speech? "You have no choice," the evil menace replied with a cackle.

So the speech is, "You have no choice." How would we describe the character from that speech? Is he or she, A, kind or comforting? B, nervous or unconfident? Or C, powerful and demanding? Pause the video while you think about your answer.

Well done.

The correct answer is C, powerful and demanding.

"You have no choice." Powerful and demanding.

That is how that speech shows us the character is powerful and demanding.

There are some important things to remember when writing direct speech in inverted commas.

Are you ready? So we have the opening inverted commas, which sometimes we remember as 66.

Then we have a capital letter, then we have the speech, and then we have the closing punctuation marks, or the inverted commas, which sometimes we might remember as a 99.

Remember the real word? These are inverted commas.

They're a pair of punctuation because there are two of them.

There's the first pair come at the start, and the second pair comes at, the second one in the pair comes at the end.

So inverted commas sit at the top of the line, not like a full stop, or a comma, that sits on the line at the bottom.

They sit at the top of the line.

There is always a capital letter to start the direct speech.

Then we have the speech, which often comes first in the sentence.

And then we have the inverted commas to show where the speech begins and ends.

So the ones there show where it ends.

Whereas these first ones here show where it begins.

The speech begins.

We have our capital letter.

We have the thing the character's saying, and we have our inverted commas to show where it ends.

Okay, I've had a go at writing, at using some inverted commas to show the direct speech.

But I have a feeling I've made a few mistakes.

Can you be the teacher and mark my work? Can you tell me what three things have gone wrong in this speech sentence? So there should be not one, not two, but three mistakes.

Can you see if you can spot them? Perhaps you could either tell a partner and work together, or you could have some thinking time and then say them out loud.

Remember you are looking for three mistakes.

Good luck being my teacher.

Off you go.

Okay, let's go through the answers together.

So hopefully you may have spotted that one of my mistakes was that there are no inverted commas to signal the beginning of the direct speech.

"Please let me go." That's the thing that Jerry is speaking or saying.

I can see some inverted commas at the end to show where the speech ends, but there's no inverted commas at the beginning.

So let's add those in.

There we go.

That was one of my mistakes.

Another mistake was that the direct speech does not begin with a capital letter.

It always must begin with a capital letter.

So my P in please needs to be a capital P.

And my third mistake is that the closing inverted commas are not in the right place.

They're at the bottom, where a comma would go.

So we need to lift them up to the top of the line, so they should go here.

And now I've got my pair of inverted commas at the start and end of the direct speech.

And I've got my capital letter at the beginning.

So now this direct speech is correct.

Thank you so much for correcting my work for me.

Okay, it's time for your last task in today's lesson.

I would like you to add the starting capital letter and the pair of inverted commas to each piece of direct speech.

Okay, so let's take a look at the sentences.

Number one is, "I've got nothing to lose," he shouted courageously.

Number two is, "You're making a big mistake," the villain called after him.

Number three is, "Only three more streets until I'm home," the boy panted to himself.

And number four is, "Finally, I'm home!" Jerry sighed in relief to his mom.

So we've got four sentences.

And you need to first of all, add the capital letter, and then you need to add the inverted commas.

Remember, there should be some at the start of the speech, and some at the end of the direct speech.

Pause the video while you complete this task now.

Okay, well done for completing that task.

Let's go through the answers.

In the first sentence, the speech is, "I've got nothing to lose." So we should have a capital I, and we should have our inverted commas at the beginning, and end of that speech.

The second one, "You're making a big mistake." So hopefully you can see my inverted commas finish, start at the beginning, and then they go at the end of the speech, "You're making a big mistake." And then we have our inverted commas, and we've also got our capital letter.

Here again, we've corrected the small O, lowercase O, to a capital letter O.

"Only three more streets until I'm home." And again, I've got my pair of inverted commas at the start and end of the direct speech.

In number four, "Finally, I'm home." That's the thing that Jerry is saying.

So we've got our inverted commas around that, and a capital letter at the start of the direct speech.

Well done for completing that task.

So let's summarise what we've learned today.

We've learnt an awful lot.

We've learnt that direct speech is the term used for any words spoken out loud by a character in a text.

Writers use direct speech to explain more about how characters are feeling, behaving, speaking, or reacting at particular points of a story.

Inverted commas are the punctuation marks that signal direct speech in a text.

Anytime a character speaks, inverted commas are used.

So I've got a challenge for you.

When you next do some reading, whether it's reading a magazine or reading a story, or reading, whatever it might be that you are reading, I would like you to be on the hunt for some inverted commas.

And remember, when you see them, that is something that somebody is saying.

It's some direct speech.

So perhaps when you're reading your story tonight, if you're reading a book or something, or if someone's reading something to you, you might encourage them, or you might yourself, do different voices for when the characters are speaking, or you might try to use lots of expression.

But the main challenge is can you be inverted comma hunters? And I want you to look for inverted commas and direct speech in any reading that you are doing this week.

So good luck with that challenge, and hopefully I'll see you for some more learning another time.

Bye!.