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8 Future Tense Exercises : Plans, Predictions, Schedules and more

3rd February, 2024

Conversational, visual and audio cues can help convey to students the primary uses of the future tense. Conversational cues give students communicative practice. Images containing action can be used for predictions.  Moreover, teaching  with the aid of audio can help students engage more deeply with the future tense. Also, calendars are used for plans and schedules.

1 Basic future tense – conversational practice

These exercises include sets of future tense conversational questions, along with multiple potential responses and a follow-up question for each. This practice aims to help ESL (English as a Second Language) students improve their understanding and usage of the future tense in English. Students can familiarize themselves with various contexts where the future tense is commonly used, such as discussing plans, making predictions, and expressing intentions.

This is a structured exercise, with questions, possible responses, and follow-up questions, that allows students to get a more comprehensive understanding of how future tense conversations flow.

Future tense – going to conversational questions (PDF)

Future tense – will conversational questions (PDF)

Future tense – going to vs will conversational questions (PDF)

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2 Future perfect – conversational practice

More advanced students can practice conversations using the future perfect with the questions below as a guide or starting point. I’ve added a chart to show how the future perfect works.

Future perfect Q and A (PDF)

3 What are your plans?

A useful vocabulary and speaking activity for talking about plans with “going to”.

(download PDF)

4 Plans, predictions and schedules ( with audio and answers)

Expanding on the above, this exercise includes another instance when the future tense is used: schedules. The present tense is used for talking about scheduled activities in the future.

Plans and predictions and schedules (PDF)

(see the YouTube video version)

Plans, predictions and schedules

5 Plans and predictions (with audio and answers)

The two most basic uses of the future tense are for plans and predictions. This exercise includes some common situations when the future tense might be used: talking about the weather, economics (money), careers and immediate actions.

Plans and predictions (PDF)

Plans and predictions

6 Talking about plans with  “going to”

“Going to” is the most basic form of the future tense usually taught to students learning the English language. This is a good speaking activity that encourages students to speaking a personal way about the future.

“Going to” (PDF)

7 Making predictions with “will”

Making predictions is a pretty engaging exercise. And I think this survey-type activity is an excellent way to have a discussion class. Moreover, it can work at fairly low levels.

Making predictions with “will” (PDF)

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Indirect and Reported Speech

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6 Picture-Based Present Continuous Worksheets (PDF)

5  Useful Passive Tense Practice worksheets

6  Present Perfect Language and Speaking Worksheets

7 Incredibly Useful Past Tense Simple Teaching Activities (PDF)

8 Preposition Exercises for Location, Time and Movement (PDF)

3 Great Exercises for the 2nd Conditional (PDF)

8 Predictions survey

This is a speaking and writing exercise for English language learners to practice using the future tense. Students write 5 questions about the future using the questions at the top of the page as an example. Then they interview 5 students and write a short report about their survey. Click on the image below or the link to download the PDF file.

Predictions survey (PDF)

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