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by Claudia Pesce 300,650 views

Who knows what the future will bring? However, it does look promising, particularly for our ESL students, because once they master the major verb tenses, they'll be better equipped to communicate in English. And while on the subject of the future...teaching the future simple tense ("will-future") is not as "simple" as it sounds. It actually involves teaching the future with " will" and the future with " going to ", plus teaching students to understand when they should use each.

Let's go over the procedure of teaching the Simple Future Tense step by step:

How To Proceed

1. Introduce the Future Simple Tense with will
Ask a student, " Who is the President of the United States?"
S: Barack Obama is the President.
T: That's right. He will be President until the end of 2012.
Tell students we use will to talk about the future in general. Make sure they understand the conjugation is the same for all verbs. Go over other uses of "will" and give examples:
- For instant decisions: You're hungry? I will make you a sandwich.
- For promises or voluntary actions: I will call you tomorrow.
Use this excellent worksheet to practice instant decisions with will.

2. Introduce the Future SimpleTense with will - Negative form
Just as will is used to express voluntary actions, or things you are willing to do, its negative form won't is used to express something you are not willing to do, or even refuse to do:
I'm tired of trying to talk to Sarah. I won't call her again.
Ask students to give you examples of things they refuse to do.

3. Introduce the Simple Future Simple with will - Interrogative form
Model questions with will:
T: Will you help me with this?
S: Yes/Sure!
T: Will you go to tonight's concert?
S: Yes/No.
Ask students to ask each other questions with will that are either requests for help or assistance, or about the future in general. Model all types of questions first, with what, where, when, etc...

4. Introduce the Future Simple with will - Short answers
Have students ask you questions about future events and reply with affirmative and negative short answers:
S: Will you give us homework for the weekend?
T: Yes, I will/No, I won't.
Ask students to ask each other yes or no questions with will, and have them practice replying in short answers.

5. Introduce the Future Simple with going to
Unlike the future with will, where an instant decision is made, once you've made a decision, and it constitutes a plan, you use the future with going to to express it. Tell your students: I have special plans for the weekend. I'm going to visit my grandmother. Explain to students that the conjugation for the future with going to is the same as for the present continuous. Provide plenty of examples in different persons: You are going to have a special class next week. A student from London is going to speak to the class. We are going to listen to his experience studying in the UK.
Ask students to give examples of things they are going to do next weekend, but make sure they understand they must be things they have already planned to do.

6. Introduce the Future Simple with going to - Negative form
The future with going to in negative form, likewise, is used to express things we have decided not to do. Give examples by alternating between negative and affirmative forms: I am not going to give you homework for tonight. I'm going to give you some exercises for the weekend.
Ask students to do the same: Bon Jovi is not going to come to town next month. They are going to be here in December.

7. Introduce the Future Simple with going to - Interrogative form
Model questions with going to: Are you going to buy tickets for the concert tonight? Is President Obama going to cancel his trip? Are you going to study for the test?
Have students ask questions in different persons.

8. Introduce the Future Simple with going to - Short answers
Have students ask you questions about future events with going to and reply with affirmative and negative short answers:
S: Are you going to give us a difficult final test?
T: Yes, I am/No, I'm not.
Ask students to ask each other yes or no questions with going to, and have them practice replying in short answers.

9. Contrast both forms of Future Simple
Make sure students understand that either form can be used for the future in general, but in some cases only one is correct. When making a decision at the moment of speaking, we use will: Where is John? He's late. I'll give him a call. But once the decision has been made, we use going to:
S: Where are you going?
T: I'm going to call John to see why he's taking so long.
This worksheet provides some wonderful exercises for both types and clearly illustrates the contrast.

At BusyTeacher.org, you have dozens of Future Simple worksheets at your disposal. Download as many as you'd like, or make your own, with games, songs or videos. But looking to the future is something both you and your students should enjoy.

P.S. If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English.

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Have students read a few travel blogs (feel free to adjust existing blogs to be more level appropriate). Have students write a blog pretending they are visiting NYC and want to convince people from their home town to visit.

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Listen to the conversation and do the exercises to practise and improve your listening skills.

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It's no surprise that many teachers don't feel confident about tackling it in the classroom. When teaching grammar or lexis, we find ways of making the language accessible to our learners. How then to do this with intonation?

Can I improve my own awareness of intonation?

What is intonation?
Intonation is about how we say things, rather than what we say. Without intonation, it's impossible to understand the expressions and thoughts that go with words.
Listen to somebody speaking without paying attention to the words: the 'melody' you hear is the intonation. It has the following features:

It's divided into phrases, also known as 'tone-units'.

The pitch moves up and down, within a 'pitch range'. Everybody has their own pitch range. Languages, too, differ in pitch range. English has particularly wide pitch range.

Awareness of intonation aids communication.

Incorrect intonation can result in misunderstandings, speakers losing interest or even taking offence!

In each tone unit, the pitch movement (a rise or fall in tone, or a combination of the two) takes place on the most important syllable known as the 'tonic-syllable'. The tonic-syllable is usually a high-content word, near the end of the unit.

Provide learners with models - don't be afraid to exaggerate your intonation.

Let students compare two examples of the same phrase, eg: varied/flat intonation, English / L1.

Ask students to have a 2-minute conversation in pairs as 'robots' (elicit the word using a picture if necessary), i.e. with no intonation. When they then go back to speaking 'normally', point out that the difference is made by intonation - this is what gives movement to our voices.

Wh-word questions: falling intonation

Question-Tags: 'chat' - falling; 'check' - rising

Lists: rising, rising, rising, falling

Get students to imitate my intonation, but without words, just humming.

The first thing is for learners to recognise the effect of intonation changes. I say the word 'bananas' - firstly with an 'interested' intonation (varied tone); then 'uninterested' (flat). Students identify the two and describe the difference. We then brainstorm attitudes, such as 'enthusiastic', 'bored', 'surprised', 'relieved'. I say 'bananas' for these. Students then do the same in pairs, guessing each other's attitude.

This can be developed by asking students to 'greet' everybody with a particular attitude. At the end, the class identify each person's attitude. For younger learners, I use 'Mr Men' characters (Miss Happy, Mr Grumpy, Miss Frightened, etc.) Each student is allocated a character and, as above, they greet the class with that character's voice.

These patterns of pitch variation are essential to a phrase's meaning. Changing the intonation can completely change the meaning.

Example:

Say: 'It's raining'.

Now say it again using the same words, but giving it different meaning. You could say it to mean 'What a surprise!', or 'How annoying!',or 'That's great!'. There are many possibilities.

Why teach intonation?
Intonation exists in every language, so the concept we're introducing isn't new. However, learners are often so busy finding their words that intonation suffers. Yet intonation can be as important as word choice - we don't always realise how much difference intonation makes:

Though it's unlikely our learners will need native-speaker-level pronunciation, what they do need is greater awareness of intonation to facilitate their speaking and listening.

Can I improve my own awareness of intonation?
It's difficult to hear our own intonation. Choose somebody to listen to closely: as you listen, visualise the melody in your head, 'seeing' how it's divided into tone-units. Next time you do a class speaking activity, focus on your students' intonation. Are there students whose language is 'correct', but something doesn't sound right? Do they come across as boring or insincere? It may well be their pitch range isn't varied enough.

How I help my students
Awareness-raising
Some techniques I find useful for raising learners' awareness of intonation:

Intonation doesn't exist in isolation. So it makes sense to approach it together with other factors.

Intonation and grammar
Where patterns associating intonation and grammar are predictable, I highlight these to my students. I see these as starting-points, rather than rules.

Remember that intonation is relevant to any speaking activity, and makes interesting remedial/revision work.

Remember that students don't always have to 'know' we're focusing on intonation: every time I drill phrases they're hearing intonation models.

Provide realistic and clear contexts.

Avoid going into theory.

Help students find patterns / rules-of-thumb, wherever possible.

Use a consistent system for marking intonation on the board for example: arrow for tone; tonic-syllable in CAPITALS; double lines ( // ) for tone-unit boundaries.

Keep it positive and don't expect perfection. The last thing I'd want is to make my students so anxious about their intonation that they stop speaking!

Some examples are:

When practising these constructions, I include activities focusing specifically on intonation.

For example, Question-Tags: Students in groups are assigned jobs to mime to each other. Students make notes about what they think each person's job is. They then have to check they've understood the jobs: Students use rising/falling intonation question-tags depending how sure they are: 'You're a pilot, aren't you?'. At the end, students confirm their jobs.

Intonation and attitude
It's important that students are aware of the strong link between intonation and attitude, even if it's difficult to provide rules here.

Intonation and discourse

Learners' also need awareness of intonation in longer stretches of language. Here, we can give our learners clearer guidelines: 'new' information = fall tone; 'shared' knowledge = 'fall-rise'.

A simple shopping dialogue demonstrates this:

SK: Can I help you?
C: I'd like a chocolate (fall) ice-cream.
SK: One chocolate (fall-rise) ice-cream. Anything else?
C: One strawberry (fall) ice-cream.
SK: One chocolate (fall-rise), one strawberry (fall-rise). Anything else?
C: Yes. One chocolate (fall-rise), one strawberry (fall-rise), and one vanilla (fall).

Higher level students can identify the 'new' / 'shared' information, and then practise reading accordingly.

With lower level students, we memorise the dialogue together. Although I don't refer to intonation directly, I use my hands to indicate it (fall = hand pointing down; fall-rise = down then up). Students then prepare their own dialogues. I've found my learners pick up these patterns very quickly.

Conclusion
When working on intonation in the classroom I:

Further reading
Sound Foundationsby Adrian Underhill
Pronunciationby Dalton and Seidlholfer
How to Teach Pronunciation by Gerald Kelly
Teaching English Pronunciationby Joanne Kenworthy

Marta J. Sabbadini, British Council, Cameroon

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It's no surprise that many teachers don't feel confident about tackling it in the classroom. When teaching grammar or lexis, we find ways of making the language accessible to our learners. How then to do this with intonation? Can I improve my own awareness of intonation? What is intonation?

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by Tara Arntsen 152,804 views

The present continuous tense is one that students will learn after learning the first three simple tenses that is simple present, past and future. When teaching additional tenses it is important to highlight what time period is referred to and also in what situations students would used each tense.

How To Proceed

1. Warm up
Have students practice using the simple present tense as they volunteer to answer questions or play fruit basket to encourage students to make sentences of their own. When you have finished draw an image on the board illustrating the simple present tense as a reference point and ensure that students understand when to use the present tense.

2. Introduce Present Continuous
Give students some example sentences using the present continuous tense. By using pairs of sentences in your examples, you can show when to use the present simple tense and when to use the present continuous tense. A good example might be " I play baseball every day." and " I am playing baseball with Ben (right now). " See if students understand the difference in meaning between the two and ask for translations. It is important to illustrate on the board the difference between this tense and other tenses your students have learned. The best way to do this is by drawing a simple chart. On the board under your image illustrating the present tense, draw a similar image to illustrate the present continuous tense. You can also discuss the fact that the present tense is used when talking about daily routines while the present continuous tense is used when talking about specific non-routine actions and future plans.

3. Practice Present Continuous
Give students some basic practice exercises so they can get used to changing present simple verbs into the present continuous tense. This can be done in the form of a fill in the blank worksheet but this would also be an appropriate topic to use battleship for speaking practice. Students can use the battleship grid to change I, You, play soccer, speak English, etc. into the sentences " I am playing soccer." and " You are speaking English. " If students have played this game before, it might take approximately thirty minutes to explain and play twice.

4. Practice More
Phone conversations would be a real life situation where the present continuous tense is used quite often so in order to give students practice with this tense as well as basic phone conversation, make a short model dialogue for students to practice in pairs. This could be very simple where Student A asks Student B for someone and Student B replies " I'm sorry. He's not here right now. He's playing baseball with Ben. " It could also be more complex. Adjust the conversation to suit your students' ability level and encourage them to create part of the conversation, preferably the present continuous part of the conversation, on their own. Have students volunteer to present their dialogues to the class at the end of the activity.

5. Produce
Ask students to imagine a situation and then write three to five present continuous tense sentences to describe it without saying the location. Students can then work in pairs or groups to guess the locations of different scenarios. An example may be " I am sitting. I am listening to my music. I am looking out the window. I am moving. " It is very simple but students might then guess the location as in a car, on a bus, in a train, or on a plane.

6. Review Present Continuous
Any activity you have done for this topic can be used as a review activity at the end of the lesson. You may also want to get students moving if they have been sitting down for the entire class period, especially after a writing exercise, so you can have students form a circle. Students should take turns making present continuous sentences and then calling on students to make the next sentence. You can continue this activity until everyone has made a sentence or until the bell rings. If you want to ensure that everyone makes at least one sentence, you can have students start sitting down after their turns. This is not recommended for large classes because then lots of students will be sitting down with nothing to do towards the end of the activity.

Present continuous is a more complex tense that students may initially have difficulty understanding when to use but the more practice they have using it, the better off they will be. See all Present Continuous worksheets and lesson activities.
P.S. If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English.

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How to Teach Present Continuous: Alternative Approach

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by Tara Arntsen 152,807 views The present continuous tense is one that students will learn after learning the first three simple tenses that is simple present, past and future. When teaching additional tenses it is important to highlight what time period is referred to and also in what situations students would used each tense.

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Disclaimer: This article is designed mainly for teachers planning a lesson on present continuous. For a more comprehensive explanation and detailed usage of the form, please access Learn How to Use Present Continuous.
Teaching the present continuous usually takes place after the present, past, and future simple forms have been introduced. However, many books and curricula choose to introduce the present continuous immediately after the present simple. This order can sometimes be confusing, as students may have difficulties understanding the subtlety of something that happens as a routine (as expressed by present simple) and an action that takes place at the moment of speaking (as expressed by present continuous).

No matter when you introduce this tense, it's important to provide as much context as possible by using appropriate time expressions, such as "now," "at the moment," "currently," etc.

Begin teaching the present continuous by speaking about what is happening in the classroom at the moment of introduction. Once students recognize this usage, you can extend it to other things you know are happening now. This can include simple facts such as:

The sun is shining at the moment.

We're learning English at the moment.

Make sure to mix it up by using a number of different subjects:

I'm teaching the present continuous right now.

My wife is working in her office at the moment.

Those boys are playing tennis over there.

Choose a magazine or web page with lots of activity, and ask students questions based on the pictures.

To teach the negative form, use the magazine or web pages to ask yes or no questions focusing on eliciting a negative response. You may want to model a few examples before asking students.

Is she playing tennis? - No, she isn't playing tennis. She's playing golf.

Is he wearing shoes? - No, he's wearing boots.

Are they eating lunch?

Once students have practiced a few rounds of questions, distribute magazines or other pictures around the classroom and ask students to grill each other on what is happening at the moment.

Use a present continuous timeline to illustrate the fact that the present continuous is used to express what is happening at the moment. If you feel comfortable with the level of the class, introduce the idea that the present continuous can be used to speak about what is happening not only at the very moment but around the wider present (tomorrow, Sunday, etc.). It's a good idea at this point to contrast the present continuous auxiliary verb "to be" with other auxiliary verbs, pointing out that "ing" must be added to the verb in the present continuous form (subject + be (am, is, are) + verb(ing)).

Comprehension activities such as describing what is happening in the photos in magazines or practicing with dialogue will help students solidify their understanding of the present continuous. In addition, present continuous worksheets will help tie in the form with appropriate time expressions, and review quizzes contrasting present simple with the present continuous might be very helpful as well.

It's a good idea to compare and contrast the present continuous with the present simple form once students have understood the difference. Also, using the present continuous for other purposes such as discussing present projects at work or speaking about future scheduled meetings will help students become familiar with the other uses of the present continuous form.

The greatest challenge with present continuous is understanding the difference between a routine action ( present simple) and an activity occurring at the moment. It's quite common for students to use the present continuous to speak about daily habits once they've learned the form, so comparing the two forms early on will help students understand the differences and avoid potential mistakes. The use of the present continuous to express future scheduled events is best left for intermediate level classes. Finally, students might also have difficulties understanding that stative verbs may not be used with continuous forms.

1. Greet the class and talk about what is happening at the moment in class. Make sure to pepper your sentences with appropriate time expressions such as "at the moment" and "now."

2. Ask students what they are doing at the moment to help them begin using the form. At this point in the lesson, keep things simple by not diving into the grammar. Try to get students to provide correct answers in a relaxed conversational manner.

3. Use a magazine or find pictures online and discuss what is happening in the picture.

4. As you discuss what the people are doing in the photos, begin to differentiate by asking questions with "you" and "we."

5. At the end of this discussion, write up a few example sentences on the whiteboard. Make sure to use different subjects and ask students to identify the differences between each sentence or question.

6. Point out that the helping verb "be" changes, but note that the main verb (playing, eating, watching, etc.) remains the same.

7. Begin contrasting the present continuous with the present simple by alternating questions. For example: What is your friend doing at the moment? and Where does your friend live?

8. Get student input on the differences between the two forms. Help students understand as necessary. Make sure to point out the differences in time expression and use between the two forms.

9. Ask students to write out 10 questions, five with the present continuous and five with the present simple. Move around the room helping students with any difficulties.

10. Have students interview each other using the 10 questions.

11. For homework, ask students to write a short paragraph contrasting what a friend or family member does every day and what they are doing at the moment. Model a few sentences on the board so that students clearly understand the homework assignment.

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Top Suggestions for Teaching the Present Continuous in ESL

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Disclaimer: This article is designed mainly for teachers planning a lesson on present continuous. For a more comprehensive explanation and detailed usage of the form, please access Learn How to Use Present Continuous. Teaching the present continuous usually takes place after the present, past, and future simple forms have been introduced.

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In this engaging present continuous game, students complete and match sentence parts together to form present continuous sentences. In pairs, students complete sentence parts on the long cards in the present continuous tense by writing the correct form of the verb to be and the -ing form of the verb in brackets, e.g. 'I am eating...' Students then match the long cards with short cards to make present continuous sentences by making logical connections between the words on the cards, e.g. drawing / a picture, watching / television, etc. When the pairs have matched all the cards, they read out their sentences. Pairs score one point for each correctly completed gap-fill and one point for each correct sentence. The pair with the most points wins the game.

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Present Continuous Games, Worksheets and ESL ActivitiesElementary (A1-A2)Pre-intermediate (A2) Fun Memory GameESL Present Continuous Game - Grammar and Speaking: Pelmanism, Matching, Forming Sentences - Pair Work - Elementary (A1-A2) - 25 minutesHere is a rewarding present continuous memory game to play in class.