Future Tense Exercises : Plans, Predictions, Schedules and more
2nd January, 2025
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.
Future tense role play
This lesson plan teaches students to talk about upcoming events using present continuous tense. A reference guide shows the basic grammar pattern, followed by two practical exercises where students match cultural images with vocabulary and complete a natural conversation about festival plans. The activities blend grammar practice with cultural elements around Indian food and entertainment.
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Future tense grammar review
This future tense exercise set presents five clear steps in tense formation. Real-world contexts like office moves, weather reports, and technology updates help students progress from basic form selection to question construction.
Plans and predictions listening
Practicing three future forms, this exercise pairs images with dialogues about everyday plans and predictions. Students complete gaps in conversations about apartment hunting, retirement plans, deadlines, and lifestyle changes while learning when to use ‘will,’ ‘going to,’ and present continuous.
Expressing opinions about the future
This future life worksheet prompts students to express their opinions on major life decisions. The exercise pairs visual cues with sentence stems about getting jobs, buying homes, starting families, and living abroad, encouraging learners to practice future forms while reflecting on personal goals.
What are your plans?
Matching daily activities with images helps students familiarize themselves with vocabulary used to talk about future plans. The worksheet pairs nine everyday scenes with phrases like “bake cupcakes” and “visit relatives,” followed by personal questions about upcoming weekend and travel plans. Sample answers model natural responses about leisure activities and daily tasks.
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)
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.
Plans and predictions 2 (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.
Talking about plans with “going to” survey
“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.
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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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.
I teach ESL classes for the school district I’m in. I love your updates on topics, i.e., Coronavirus etc, to assist the students. Also, the creative ways the lessons are presented, makes it almost appear to them as if they’re playing a game! : )
Thanks a lot. I try to keep up-to-date. And try to make things interesting too.
Really appreciate the comments.