7 Future Continuous Games

1 Ch-ch-ch-changes
Students choose one of a list of changes that they could make to their life (e.g. “I’m going to quit my job and become an artist”) and then predict their future life at certain points in time (e.g. this time tomorrow, in a year and in ten years) until their partner guesses which change they chose. This can be a good way of contrasting the tense with Going to for future plans.

2 Guess the place at a point
Students imagine a future holiday and describe what they will be doing there this time tomorrow/next week/next month until their partner guesses the place. You can also practise difficult to pronounce or difficult to remember country names like “Belgium” and “The Philippines” by including them in a list of suggested places.

3 Guess the future year
Students make statements about their own lives, their classmates’ lives and life in general such as “We will all be wearing HUD sunglasses” until their partners guess what year they mean. Any wrong guesses should be commented on with clues like “These things could be true in that year too, but I think they will happen a little later”.

4 Guess the action from the points in time
Students choose an action, e.g. from a list they are given, and make statements about who will and won’t be doing it at particular points in time until their partner guesses what the action is. For example, for “wearing pyjamas” they could say “Most of us will be doing it at midnight tonight” and “I’ll be doing it most of the time by the time I’m about 80”.

5 No, let ME help
One student mentions some help that they will need at a point of time in the future, e.g. “I need someone to help me practise the IELTS Speaking test after work tomorrow”. The other students use their imaginations to compete to show how little trouble it will be to help them at that time with sentences like “I’ll be visiting your office at 5 p.m, so we could go together to a café and do it” and “I’ll be practising it with my friend when you finish work, so you could just come and join us”.

6 Busy points
Students try to find points in time in the next seven days where they will be doing something that is harder work or more unpleasant than what their partner will be doing. This can be done with exchanges like “What will you be doing at 6:50 tomorrow morning?” “I’ll be waiting for the train to work” “That sounds reasonably unpleasant, but I’ll be trying to force my daughter to take a shower before kindergarten, so I think I win”.

7 The perfect point in time
Ask pairs of students to imagine that they will both be on holiday at this time next week and to explain exactly what they will be doing and what will be happening around them at exactly that time as a way of trying to out-boast each other, e.g. “The sun will be shining and my skin will be turning nicely brown” “That’s nothing. Where I’m going to be at this time next week I’ll be drinking caipirinhas while thousands of beautiful women dance in the street”.