Koy 4: Verb Tenses, Future 4.D. Ideas for Teaching Many beginning students learn the word will before their course, so in theory they know how to express future time, The unfortunate thing is that will is not the main way in English to talk about the future. Yes, will means future, but it is not nearly as common as the expression be going to, so you should start with be going to. On the board, create three columns labeled yesterday, every day, and tomorrow with the subject I and a blank written under each. Your goal is to take verbs that students in the class shout out and write them, with class help, in all three time slots. yesterday every day tomorrow L t £ ‘Ask the class for any verb, A student says work. Ask for the past tense cof work, When someone says worked, say, Yes, but say it with I. When someone says I worked, then write I worked in Column 1, Move to Col- umn 2. Get someone to say, I work. Write that. Then for the last column, ask about tomorrow. Some students might say, will, but tell them that will is possible for future, but this is not the number one way to express future. Don't write the answer yet. Ask, Does anyone know gonna or going to? Most likely, at least one student does, Then you should write I am ‘going to work, Your board should now look like this: yesterday every day tomorrow i a I worked. Twork, Lam going to work, Try to elicit one more regular verb before doing an irregular verb. Working with your class, you should try to put seven to ten examples on the board. In another class meeting, you should work on differentiating when will is used and when be going to is used, You should teach your stu- dents that be going to should be their default way of expressing future. ‘At the intermediate level, students learn that present progressive can be used for future time: I'm working tomorrow. This structure should not be taught to beginning students as it will only cause confusion. Begin- ning students have just leamed that present progressive is for current actions and be going to is for future, To tell them otherwise is too much for the average beginning student. Future perfect tense and its progressive tense are for advanced stu- dents. These two tenses are used so infrequently that I recommend skip- ping them if possible. If you must cover them, I would dedicate the minimum time possible.