Yeah, I had to cover the introductory verbs with my 8th-graders and it was pretty complicated for them but lots of examples is what helps. The grammar reference from our textbook had a very nice table with examples of verbs, direct and reported speech.
Here �s what I did with my teens (which could be easily adapted to adults if you use pics of celebrities from tabloids):
I offered my students (6th grade) to create three posters as a group activity on three topics "Family and Friends", "Hobbies", and "Weather". We glued some bright cut-outs of different people from magazines, leaving some space for the speech bubbles. (It is nice to use bright, colour paper as backgrounds.) Then, the students made statements on the given topics using direct speech, like: "I love my daughter"(for a picture of a woman and a girl), "I don �t have a friend" -- "I can be your friend", "I hate rainy weather"(for a picture of a girl wearing one boot), etc. and we checked them for mistakes. Your adult students can think of something more complex or humorous. There should be at least five statements for each poster. They wrote the sentences in the speech bubbles with black markers. They really enjoyed the activity. The next lesson we used the posters as a warmer for reported speech practice (we had already talked about the transition from present to past, and from first person to third, and drilled that, too) BTW I still use those posters as a warm-up for other students during the lesson on reported speech. The posters will also look cool on the classroom wall:)
Another suggestion would be a "Deaf reporter" game (do you notice the play on words reporter-reported speech:) in which there �s a reporter who can �t hear what a person who he �s interviewing says so he keeps asking "What did he/she say?"
You could offer your students to chose from a list of celebrities or famous people who they would want to interview, then ask them to prepare questions they would want to ask them. In class you give the deaf reporter (pick one student who could be less confident with reported speech) the questions from students, he/she asks the celebrity (another student who would volunteer to roleplay someone) and then asks other students in the room, "What did he/she say?" The student, who would get the sentence in reported speech correctly, can then become the next celebrity:) and the game continues. I hope I got it clear enogh for you to get the idea.
There are loads of ws here on the site by which you could get inspired
Sophia
