Paul Kaye, British Council, Syria

This is a speaking exercise for the future perfect and future continuous forms for intermediate and upper intermediate students. The forms themselves are used in a highly controlled way, making it suitable for a class who have just been introduced to them.

• The open questions that follow some of the gap-fill sentences provide freer practice and can generate a great deal of discussion both in a class where people know each other well and in one where nobody knows anybody!
• The content is a mixture of concrete items - '…will have raised many children. How many?' and more abstract, which may require sensitive handling, e.g. '…will have learnt many lessons. Which?'.

Preparation
Before the class, prepare enough photocopies of the worksheet for each learner to have a copy.

Worksheet 50k pdf

Procedure

• Ask the class to imagine they are 75. Ask them to imagine what they look like. If you have a flashcard of someone old, show them and tell them this is you at 75.
• On the board, write two sentences, using the two forms, about you. For example, 'When I am 75, I will be living in the South of France on a farm' and 'When I am 75, I will have lived and worked in 10 different countries'. Use exaggerated ideas if necessary, e.g. '..I will have had 20 children!'
• Get your learners' opinions.
• Ask learners to complete the worksheet, working in pairs. If you are working with a new class, make sure they know each other's names.
• When learners have finished completing the sentences, ask them to get up and walk around to check their ideas with the people they have named.
• Give them time and encourage discussion, but monitor closely, both for the target language and potential areas of sensitivity..
• Elicit any interesting answers open-class to finish the exercise.

Note: An extension of this could be to ask learners to write their own sentences rather than completing yours, providing freer practice of the forms.

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