Teaching English as a Foreign Language

Chapter 16: Feeling Tense? Sorting Out Verb Tenses 243

Most sentences in the future perfect include by and a future time reference

(next week, December and so on).

The future perfect tense always includes will have and a past participle. This

is the same for all subject pronouns (I, you, we and so on):

I will have begun.

You will have begun.

He/she/it will have begun.

We will have begun.

They will have begun.

In the negative you use not after will or won’t instead.

I will not have begun.

I won’t have begun.

The question is made by putting will before the subject pronoun.

Will you have begun by tonight?

Why will it have worked?

The pronunciation of ‘will have’ at normal speed poses problems for students.

The sound we often use for this is represented in phonemes like this /wiləv/.

It’s important for students to recognise what these words realistically sound

like, otherwise they won’t hear this tense in real life situations.

A timeline, like the one in Figure 16-4, can help illustrate the future perfect.

Figure 16-4:
Timeline
illustrating
the future
perfect.

2009 2029

move in pay off mortgage retire

XX XXXX

The idea of goals and ambitions is an ideal context for teaching this tense.

Students can set up there own time frames to explain when they hope to

achieve these ambitions. They can also make predictions about the world in

general.