Stage 1: Present examples
Write these sentences on the board:
- In the future, every house will/won’t have a robot.
- In the future, robots will/won’t drive cars.
- In the future, your teacher will/won’t be a robot.
Ask learners to work in pairs, discuss their ideas and choose their answer.
Ask questions such as:
- In the future, will every house have a robot?
- Will robots drive cars?
- Will your teacher be a robot?
Take feedback. Write an example question on the board.
Ask: ‘What do you notice about these sentences?’
To help learners, you could:
- underline ‘will’ and ‘won’t’ and the question form, e.g. Will every house have a robot?
- ask: ‘Do we know what robots will do in the future?’ (= No).
Stage 2: Take feedback
Ask learners to share their feedback on what they have noticed in the example sentences. Here are some key points you might want to share with them or write on the board.
Use
We use ‘will’ and ‘won’t’ to predict what we think or believe about the future, so we often begin with ‘I think’, e.g. I think robots will drive cars. My teacher won’t be a robot.
Other uses of ‘will’ include:
- offering to help, e.g. I’ll carry your bag for you
- promising, e.g. I promise I won’t tell anyone
- quick decisions, e.g. I’m tired now, I’ll do it tomorrow.
- Other uses of ‘won’t’ include refusing to do something, e.g. The children won’t listen to me.
Form
‘Will’ and ‘won’t’ are used with all persons.
Contracted forms and their pronunciation are common, e.g. ‘I’ll’ and ‘I won’t’.
Note: ‘Will’ is a modal verb like ‘can’, ‘could’ and ‘would’, so we don’t use ‘will’ with ‘do’ in questions or negatives.
Stage 3: Use the grammar
You will/you won’t
Learners work in pairs to make predictions about each other’s futures. Elicit or give some verbs as prompts, e.g. You will/won’t be/have/go/work/win.
Learners could even make predictions about your future!
What will happen?
Learners work in groups to predict what will/won’t happen in different situations. For example:
- You have planned to go camping during the rainy season.
- You have planned to meet before school to plan your group presentation but two of you are at home ill.
- You are going to visit a national park, what will you see?
- You have an exam today but you missed the bus.
Future poem
Learners write a short poem about their ideal future.
Discussion
Learners discuss the future of their country/the world – what it will be like in ten, 50 or 100 years’ time – create a poster and present it.