240 Part IV: The Grammar You Need to Know – and How to Teach It
Doing the future simple
Although there’s more to the story, when students are at a low level it’s
enough to start by teaching them to use the future simple to describe an
action in the future. Teach separately the other ways of expressing the future,
such as in the present continuous, or using ‘going to’.
The future simple always includes will and then an infinitive without to, which
is the original form of a verb before any other endings or irregular forms have
been added. The infinitive is usually the first column in a verb table.
Use the future simple with words like tomorrow, next (week, month, year) and
later.
To make the future simple of ‘to go’ you use will plus go – will takes the place
of to. Likewise the future simple of ‘to buy’ is will buy.
Teach students that will doesn’t change in the 3rd person singular (that is:
‘he’, ‘she’ and ‘it’). We never say wills’. In addition, you can use the contraction
(’ll) in positive sentences.
I will/I’ll buy that jacket tomorrow.
You will/you’ll buy that jacket tomorrow.
He/she/it will buy that jacket tomorrow.
We will buy that jacket tomorrow.
They will buy that jacket tomorrow.
To make the negative form of this tense you use not after will.
Give some attention to the contraction of ‘will not’ – won’t. It looks different
from how students may expect it and shouldn’t be mistaken for ‘want’ in terms
of pronunciation. The phonemes for want and won’t are written like this, so
you can highlight the different vowel sounds:
/wɒnt/= want
/wəυnt/= won’t
And the negatives forms look like this: I will not do it. I won’t.
You can make a question by putting will before the subject word.
Will you help me later?
How will I know?
