Reported Speech Within Moodle Tests. Assessing Grammar Aspects Of Indirect Speech

Reported Speech or Indirect Speech is widely used in the formal register of the language, as at the level of professional communication collocutors are more likely to be interested in sending or respectively receiving the message that a certain job or task has been done instead of emphasising who the author or the performer is. Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP), as professional communication devices, witness multiple instances of Indirect speech communication, hence the need of having such structures much discussed and often practised with our students in economics and with the students in law, during their language classes. A facility thoroughly implemented and largely used with all categories of students in our higher education institution in the time of the recent pandemic, namely the Moodle platform, brings about the online testing tool. This provides the possibility of numerous, accurate, quick self-evaluation tests that can be performed not only at class during the practical courses but also, if such set, at any time the teachers consider proper and allow it, due to the availability of this e-learning platform to all our students, with private accounts, wherever they have internet and a valid device to access it properly. The language teachers can employ this facility creating short tests that would quickly assess knowledge of language, acquisition of grammar aspects and ability to make good use of the structures belonging to the reported speech. With the instant feedback provided by the application, self-evaluations and improvement of knowledge by repeated self-evaluations become available and much valuable tools for hundreds of students, with no more need of corrections from the teachers, a time-saving and very useful learning and testing facility. This paper puts forward some examples of such tests, created by the authors and used during their classes or set for their students’ individual practice. The examples given can be of help to other language instructors who have the possibility to use Moodle or a similar application and are willing to provide their learners with a modern tool of learning and testing, much appreciated by the students as well