Future Progressive & Future Perfect

Narrate & Describe

Narrating in the future is an important language function. Neither the future progressive or perfect are as common as the simple future, but they are still useful in specific situations. Future progressive can be used to talk about ongoing events that you have planed for the future or you predict will happen. The future perfect is used for events that will be completed prior to a future time.

Objectives

  1. Understand the difference between the three major aspects of the future

  2. Recognize different forms of narrating in the future

  3. Create future narrations

Future Progressive

Just like the past and present progressive, the future progressive expresses an action that will be in progress at a specific point in the future or the duration of a future action.

Future progressive has three elements: will + be + present participle.

I will be running for president.
Will you be participating in the competition?
She'll be sleeping by 10pm.
They will be studying at Harvard for the next four years.
The plane will be arriving shortly.
The game will last for two hours.
How late will he be working on Christmas Eve?

The future progressive can also be expressed with be going to + be + present participle.

We're going to be singing in the choir.
The CEO is going to be speaking in the conference.
When I visit Hawaii, I am going to be sitting on the beach all day.
Did you know that the company is going to be selling a new product soon?

Future Perfect

The future perfect indicates an action that will be completed at sometime in the future. As in other uses of the perfect, the exact time of the action is not as important as the fact that it has occurred.

Future perfect has three parts: will + the auxiliary have + past participle.

I will have walked 5 miles when we finish this hike.
By next year, she will have lived in the US longer than her home country.
Before the next class, they will have studied this grammar.
My guess is they won't have finished the project by the time we get home.

Exercise 1: Summarize

Listening to the following video and summarize what the speaker expects in the future. The questions below the link may help you anticipate and capture the key points in the video.

  1. What does he say will happen in the future of education? Why does he think that? Do you agree or disagree with his position and reasons?

  2. What do you think are the benefits of online education? What do you think are the downsides of online learning?

Exercise 2: What's the Plan?

  • With a partner, ask each other questions about your futures.

  • Try to answer with future progressive as much as possible.

  • For example: What are you doing tomorrow? I will be watching a soccer game with my family in the morning.

Exercise 3: Expecting the future

  1. Make a list of current events as a group.

  2. Then, take turns explaining what you think will happen with those events in the future. Use a combination of simple, progressive, and perfect as your group narrates and describes your ideas for the future.

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