Tag: future

The following set of activities is for false beginners and elementary students of English. The aim of these activities is to practise the usage of the form be going to and reinforcing this form.

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Make a copy of the worksheet for each student. Make an extra copy of p.1 for each student, so that students have two copies each of exercises 1 and 2.

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1. Display the first slide and tell students that they need to find ‘buried’ treasure under one of the squares. Ask them to give you the coordinates of the square by saying the sentence. Click on the squares to reveal what is beneath. Correct pronunciation and elicit the long forms of I’m, He’s, We’re and They’re.

You can download the powerpoint presentation here:

Be going to Powepoint presentation

2. Display the second slide and tell the students that now you have put the treasure in a different place and that they can find it by making negative sentences. Once they find the treasure, tell them that they are going to play a similar game in pairs.

3. Hand out exercise 1 from the worksheet. You might want to elicit all the sentences and check pronunciation before the students start working in pairs.

4. Ask the students not to show their paper to anyone and to hide four treasure chests in the grid by writing four Xs. Then they try to find their partner’s treasure as in steps 1 and 2 above. When the guessers find one of the crosses, they should write it in their copy of the grid; when they find a blank square, they should draw a line through it. Let them play for a maximum of five minutes.

5. Display the third slide. This time students find the treasure by making questions.

6. Hand out exercise 2 from the worksheet. The students play the same game as before, but this time they make questions. At the end of this activity they should be familiar with all the forms of ‘be going to’, so now it’s time for how to use it.

7. Display the fourth slide and ask the students to guess what you are going to do this evening, tomorrow, next month and next year.

8. Elicit the use of the form – for your plans for the future.
You can use the following infographic to explain the form:

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[showmyadsa] Be going to – infographic

9. Display the fifth slide, hand out exercise 3 from the worksheet, and ask the students to write down your plans for the given times. After five minutes collect the sentences and check them during the next activity. Suggested answers are given at the bottom of p.5.

10. Hand out exercise 4 from the worksheet and ask the students to draw their plans in the grid. Tell them that they have only five minutes to do this and they mustn´t write words. If they don’t have any plans, they should make them up. In the meantime, check their answers to the previous activity.

11. The students work in pairs to guess what their partner is going to do, using the pictures. They should use yes/no questions and short answers. Demonstrate with one of the students, using your plans on the PowerPoint slide:

A: Are you going to buy a kite next month?
B: No, I’m not.
A: Are you going to fly a kite next month?
B: Yes, I am.

12. Return the students’ sentences from exercise 3 and give feedback.

Follow-up

1. If students need further practice with the form, you could use the following drill:

Say the first sentence and ask the students to transform it using the word you give them. Demonstrate the first one or two.

I’m going to play tennis tomorrow.
you: You’re going to play tennis tomorrow.
football: You’re going to play football tomorrow.

Here is the sequence:

I’m going to play tennis tomorrow.
you / football / watch / they / TV / next week / buy / we / he / a car / she / question / you / he / drive / negative / I

2. Hand out exercise 5 from the worksheet. Check vocabulary before students start the pair work. They then work in pairs to ask and answer the questions.

3. You can find a great infographic and more teaching ideas on be going to here.

4. There are some great ideas on teaching Be going to at British Council site.

There are some grammar points which I have been struggling with for years. Not that I would not understand them or use them incorrectly, but I always fail when I try to pass my knowledge to my students. And the usage of present continuous for future arrangements was one of the grammar points that I could not explain clearly no matter how tallented my students were.

Till this day!!

Today I feel that I broke the curse and I created a set of materials that help me explain the grammar clearly and correctly. And here I would like to share them with you.
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[showmyads] You can find here an infographic, a game and an interactive quiz.

In my opinion this infographic has it all. It explains the difference between an arrangement and a plan and states which tense should be used. At the same time it acknowledges that native speakers often do not feel any difference between the two tenses.

In the lesson my students were really excited about the game below. It is called On Target, and your task is to choose the correct option and then shoot all the bad frogs and ducks. You can shoot one of the bottles on the wall to get a bonus. The only problem with this game is the fact it is in Flash and will play only on desktop computers. Enjoy.

Future arrangements – On target game The following quiz can help your students practise the difference between present continuous and BE GOING TO. In the quiz, students should complete the text using either present continuous tense or BE GOING TO form. The students will be rewarded with a game if they pass the quiz. The quiz is in HTML5, so it will play on all desktops and mobile devices.

Future arrangements – quiz Have a look at the following poll and tell us how you feel about this grammar.

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Are you going to teach or learn the form “BE GOING TO” for expressing future? This post might come handy. There is a mind map explaining all the forms: Affirmative sentences, negative sentences and questions.

This post is especially designed for elementary students who need to learn the form. There are two games to practise the form too.

Study the forms of Be Going To in this mind map:
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Both of the games should be in HTML5 and thus you should be able to play them on your mobile phone or on a tablet too.

The first game is called Reaction. Your task is to complete the sentences with be going to and then click on the ugly frog as quickly as you can. The quicker you click the more points you are going to get.

The second game is a quiz. If you answer all the questions correctly you will be able to play the game called Indiara. Good luck.

In English there are many ways to speak about future and at the same time there are many grammarians who claim that there is nothing like a future tense in English. I do not want to discuss this issue here, I would only like to present two ways of speaking about future.

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[showmyads] First I will introduce the basic system of future tenses in English according to the speaker’s certainty. The tenses presented at the bottom of the pyramid are the least certain to happen. The tenses at the top of the pyramid are the most certain.

And in this post, I would like to deal with the tenses that are at the bottom of the pyramid: MAY/MIGHT and WILL.

First study the following mind map. Notice that MAY/MIGHT does not make questions about the future. Moreover, there do not exist any short forms of the negatives of MIGHT and MAY (no mayn’t or mightn’t.)

WILL is the most frequent form used to speak about the future. So if you are in doubt, use WILL. In both cases the verbs used after the words MIGHT/MAY and WILL are always in their basic form (in the infinitive without TO). Once you have studied the mind maps and the explanations above, it is time to practise all you have learnt in several games. The first game is called On Target and your task is to choose which word best suits into each gap. If you answer correctly you will be given a chance to shoot the bad ducks. You can shoot a bottle too and get a bonus.
Will and Might – On Target In the second game you should choose the correct form again and score a basket. Good luck.
Will and Might – Hoop shoot