ESL Future Perfect Lesson Plans

Tips for Future Perfect Lesson Plans

Future Perfect lesson plans are appropriate for advanced students or, possibly, for high intermediate students. This verb tense is usually pretty difficult for ESL students to master. One of the reasons is that it isn't used as frequently as other tenses, even by native English speakers.

Future Perfect lesson plans for ESL students should focus on verb conjugation, verb form and verb functions. For a thorough discussion on how to teach verb tenses, see Teaching ESL Verb Tenses.

Future Perfect Verb Conjugation

The Future Perfect is formed this way:

subject + will have + past participle.
The conjugation is fairly simple. Only the subject changes. Here are some examples with I, you, he/she/it, they and we.

1. I will have talked. I will have walked. I will have danced. I will have eaten.

2. You will have talked. You will have walked. You will have danced. You will have eaten.

3. She/He/It will have talked. She/He/It will have walked. She/He/It will have danced. She/He/It will have eaten.

4. They will have talked. They will have walked. They will have danced. They will have eaten.

5. We will have talked. We will have walked. We will have danced. We will have eaten.

ESL cloze exercises can be used for Future Perfect lesson plans for verb conjugation.

Future Perfect Verb Form (five forms the ESL student must learn)

1. Affirmative Usage (e.g., She will have studied future tenses.)

2. Negative Usage (e.g., She will not have studied the Present Perfect.)

3. Yes/No Questions (e.g., Will she have studied the Future Perfect?)

4. Short Answers (e.g., Yes, she will have. No, she won't have.)

5. WH- Questions (e.g., When will she have studied the Future Perfect Continuous?)

Future Perfect Function

The Future Perfect is used to express an activity that will be completed before another time or event in the future. It's usually used with a time clause, for example, "by the time." The time clause will use the Present Simple tense.

Here are some examples:

By the time I finish dinner, you will have eaten two desserts!

She will have studied English for six months by the time she leaves for the U.S.

By the time she sees her son, he will have been in Iraq for two years.

ESL Student Challenges

Future Perfect lesson plans focusing on verb conjugation can include cloze (fill-in-the-blanks) exercises. The challenge here will be using the correct past participle for irregular verbs. So if your focus is teaching ESL/EFL students the proper conjugation, it may be best to use regular verbs first.

Overall, ESL students have trouble using this tense easily and effectively because they don't get enough practice using it. It's usually one of the last tenses taught (actually, it's next to the last tense taught), so when students start new ESL classes, the teacher often has to review the previous tenses. By the time students have to leave the class, the teacher may not have had time for Future Perfect lesson plans.

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