The Road Ahead: the future continuous and future perfect for plans
About this lesson
This B2 Business English lesson plan teaches the future continuous, with the future perfect, for plans, targets and deadlines.
- Grammar
- The future continuous (This time next month, we'll be serving our first customers.), the future perfect (We'll have trained ten baristas.), by or until, and the future perfect continuous in brief.
- Topic
- Plans and targets at a fictional Portland coffee roaster opening a café in Rotterdam, with words such as scale up, phase out, a soft opening and carbon footprint.
- Activities
- A CEO's post, a tour of a café about to open, self-checking drills, a chat and a wheel, then a team message and a recording of plans.
What's inside
Chapter 1Warm-up: Where Will You Be?
Chapter 2Reading: Looking Ahead
Chapter 3Listening: Watch Out for the Drop Cloths
Chapter 4Grammar: By the Time We Open…
- Study the scheme: future continuous and future perfectGrammar schemeTry it
- Choose the correct optionChoose the optionUnlock
- Fill in the gaps: future continuous or future perfectFill in the gapsUnlock
- Drag the time expressions into the gapsDrag and dropTry it
- Fill in the table: -ing forms and past participlesFill in the tableUnlock
Chapter 5Speaking: This Time Next Year
Chapter 6Homework: Your Road Ahead
Vocabulary
10 words and phrases from the lesson, each with a picture and audio in edio.
+7 more with pictures and audio in the lessonMore words
- look back on
- phase out
- scale up
- plan ahead
- up and running
- a soft opening
- carbon footprint
Grammar: future continuous and future perfect
Plans for the year ahead need two future tenses: one for what will be happening at a given time, one for what will be finished before it. Learners use will be + -ing for something in progress, will have + past participle for deadlines, choose between by and until, and meet the future perfect continuous in brief.
Future continuous and future perfect
What will be happening at a time in the future, and what will be finished by then
Will be + -ing: in the middle of it
The future continuous places an action in progress at a future time: This time next month, we'll be serving our first customers. It also gives planned events (Lukas will be visiting the café in May) and softer questions about plans: Will you be coming to the opening?
will beverb + -ing
This time next month, we'll be serving our first customers.
Lukas will be visiting the café in May.
Will you be coming to the opening?
Will have + past participle: done by then
The future perfect looks back from a future point: By the time the café opens, we'll have trained ten baristas. Compare At nine, Claire will be serving the first customer, in the middle of it, with By ten, Claire will already have served fifty customers, done by then.
Future perfect
will havepast participle
By the time the café opens, we'll have trained ten baristas.
The contractors won't have finished before Friday.
Will the paint have dried by Saturday?
In progress or finished?
will be + -ing: in the middle of it then
- At nine, Claire will be serving the first customer.
- This time next week, we'll be training the baristas.
will have + past participle: done by then
- By ten, Claire will already have served fifty customers.
- By the end of the month, we'll have trained all the baristas.
Time words, and how long by then
This time next week and when you arrive signal will be + -ing; by and by then signal will have. For how long up to a future point, use will have been + -ing: By May, Daniel will have been selling our coffee for two years.
| Use | Typical time words | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Future continuous: an action in progress at a time in the future | this time next week, at nine tomorrow, when you arrive | When you arrive, Claire will be making coffee. |
| Future continuous: a planned or expected event | in May, next week, on Friday | Lukas will be visiting the café in May. |
| Future continuous: a polite question about someone's plans | next week, on Saturday, tonight | Will you be coming to the opening? (softer than Will you come…?) |
| Future perfect: an action finished before a time in the future | by, by then, by the time, before, within | We'll have switched every bag by the time the café opens. |
| Future perfect continuous: how long, up to a time in the future | by … for | By May, Daniel will have been selling our coffee for two years. |
By or until, and a present tense after when
By is a deadline; until lasts up to it: The contractors will have finished by Friday, but will be working until Friday. After by the time, when or while, use a present tense: By the time the café opens, not will open.
No will after by the time, when, while…
After by the time, when, while, before, after, until and as soon as, use a present tense for the future, not will: By the time the café opens (not will open), we'll have trained ten baristas. While Claire is making coffee, I'll be showing the guests around.
by or until?
by = no later than (a deadline)
- The contractors will have finished by Friday.
- We'll have trained everyone by the end of the month.
until = all the time up to then
- The contractors will be working until Friday.
- The café will stay closed until the opening day.
Decisions, state verbs and will be finished
A decision made on the spot takes plain will: Don't worry, I'll call the technician right now. State verbs avoid the continuous, so I'll know the results, not I'll be knowing. And someone will have finished the counter, though the counter will be finished, meaning ready, is fine too.
Typical mistakes
By the time the café will open, we'll have trained ten baristas.
By the time the café opens, we'll have trained ten baristas.
Present simple after by the time.
We'll have finish the counter by Friday.
We'll have finished the counter by Friday.
will have + past participle: finished, spent, chosen, flown.
We'll have trained all the baristas until the end of the month.
We'll have trained all the baristas by the end of the month.
A deadline takes by. Until means "all the time up to then".
The printer's broken? Don't worry, I'll be calling the technician right now.
The printer's broken? Don't worry, I'll call the technician right now.
For a decision you make now, use will + base form, not will be + -ing.
Will have finished or will be finished?
The contractors will be finished the counter by Friday.
The contractors will have finished the counter by Friday.
Someone completes something: will have finished. The counter will be finished (= ready) is also correct.
This time next week, I'll be knowing the results.
This time next week, I'll know the results.
State verbs (know, need, belong) don't usually take the continuous.
More lessons on this grammar: Future tenses lessons and exercises
Try the future continuous exercises
Try them yourself: these are the same exercises your students do in edio.
What's in the lesson
- 10 auto-checked exercises
- 3 games
- 2 teacher-checked tasks
- 1 real-life document
- 1 grammar scheme
- 1 set of word cards
- 1 audio clip
- 1 picture
- 1 transcript
The main objectives of this lesson are to:
- say what will be in progress at a future time: When the doors open at nine, I'll be making coffee behind that counter myself.
- say what will be done by a deadline: By the time we open, we'll have trained ten baristas. They'll have finished everything by the end of next week.
- ask about plans politely: Will you be coming to the opening? Will you be bringing your sales team?
- write a looking-ahead message for a team: what you'll be doing next year, and one target with its deadline
Lesson 20 closes Looking back and ahead and the whole of Business English B2 · A Year at Wrenfield, a course set at a fictional coffee roaster in Portland, Oregon; its last unit weighs up the past year and prepares the next. It builds on the future forms of lesson 5: will, going to and a present tense after when and until. A post about the year ahead needs both new forms: what will be happening on opening day, and what will be done by then.
First come boxes of questions about planning, targets and launches, and ten word cards with pictures and audio, from opening day to carbon footprint, to pair with situations. In a post called Looking ahead, the CEO sets out plans for the new café in Rotterdam, recyclable bags, electric vans and energy use, with comments below it. The AI-voiced listening follows her around the almost-finished café with a distributor from Germany, as they look back on the year's problems and ahead to new clients.
Four self-checking exercises come after the scheme, from a choice of forms to a drag-and-drop of time expressions and a table of -ing forms and past participles. In the chat, students plan opening day with a colleague in Rotterdam, and a wheel asks where they'll be working next year and what they'll have achieved. Homework pairs a self-checking tense drill with a memory game, then asks for a looking-ahead message and a recording of next year's plans, which the teacher reviews.
- Grammar:
- future continuous · future perfect · by the time
- Topic:
- plans and targets · sustainability · opening a new site
Teaching tips
- Draw a line from today to opening day: mark this time next month as a point and by the end of next week as a deadline, so learners see in progress and done side by side.
- Before the listening, ask what a café still needs a month before it opens; learners then check their list against the tour.
- Have in-company learners set next quarter's targets with By the end of March, we'll have…, then ask each other polite questions: Will you be hiring…? Will you be traveling…?
- Plan a one-to-one client's real week together: ask What will you be doing at ten on Tuesday? and What will you have finished by Friday?, and note which form comes out.
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The whole course: Business English B2 · A Year at Wrenfield
20 lessons at B2 in American English that follow a year at Wrenfield Coffee Roasters in Portland, Oregon, as founder Claire Morgan and her team win a Dutch hotel contract. Learners network, write emails, run meetings, negotiate, handle complaints and present figures, with one grammar point per lesson.See the course
Unit 1 First contacts
networking, a company story, a business lunch and emails: present tenses, the present perfect, question tags, indirect questions
Unit 2 Meetings and figures
scheduling, sales figures, running a meeting and negotiating: future forms, trends, gerunds and infinitives, conditionals
Unit 3 Problems and growth
a complaint, a late shipment, a launch and hiring: the present perfect continuous, the passive, comparatives, relative clauses
Unit 4 Reports, prices and feedback
reporting back, explaining prices, expenses and feedback: reported speech, linking words, modals of obligation, past modals
Unit 5 Looking back and ahead
what went wrong, other cultures, an agency and next year: the third and mixed conditionals, past deduction, the causative, the future perfect
Lesson 17What Went WrongThird and mixed conditionals
Lesson 18Working Across CulturesModals of deduction, present and past
Lesson 19Working with an AgencyCausative have and get
Lesson 20 · you're hereThe Road AheadFuture continuous and future perfect
