242 Part IV: The Grammar You Need to Know – and How to Teach It
‘At 7.45 this evening I will be watching my favourite soap opera.’ In fact the
soap begins at 7.30 p.m. but it’ll still be on TV at 7.45 p.m., so the action will be
in progress. A timeline, such as the one in Figure 16-3, can illustrate this.
Figure 16-3:
In a ques-
tion, will
comes
before the
subject
word.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Past 7.30 8.00 Present
Watch soap opera
Will you be listening?
What will she be listening to?
It is noteworthy that when a negative question is necessary, the contraction
is far more common: ‘Won’t they be listening?’ instead of ‘Will they not be
listening?’
When you make a negative statement in this tense you add not after will or
you use the contraction won’t:
I will not be listening.
They won’t be coming.
A good way to teach and practise this tense is with the use of a page of diary
entries set in the future. Students can then role-play turning down invitations
by saying what they’ll be doing instead.
You may also combine this tense with ‘at this time’ and a future time refer-
ence. So for example: ‘At this time tomorrow I will be doing my shopping’.
Getting to the future perfect
You use the future perfect tense when you refer to an action that’ll be finished
by a particular time in the future, or before another action in the future. For
example, if you imagine your retirement and the goals you hope to achieve
before that time, you can use sentences on the lines of the following to
express yourself:
By the time I retire, I will have completely paid off my mortgage. I will
have lived here for 20 years by then.
