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The unit on Future Tenses covered the traditional four tenses of Future Simple, Future Continuous, Future Perfect, and Future Perfect Continuous along with three other future tenses called “Be Going,” the Present Simple, and Present Continuous. The “Be Going” and Present Continuous tenses are the most common forms of usage for Future Tense structures. The Present Simple and Present Continuous tenses are actually part of the Present Tense category but are sometimes adapted to be used as the Future Tense. The Future Simple tense is formed using either “shall” or “will” followed by a verb. For example, “I will bake a cake.” When forming the negative, the word “not” is included and to form a question, the phrase is started with either “shall” or “will.” Something of note is that contractions are very common in the Future Simple tense such as “I’ll,” “you’ll,” “won’t,” and others. One contraction that is typically only used in the United Kingdom is “shan’t” which means “shall not.” This tense is used for future facts, promises, predictions with no present evidence, assumptions/speculations, spontaneous decisions, or threats. The usage of the words “shall” and “will” was differentiated to indicate that “shall” implies a suggestion while “will” implies intent. In the Future Continuous tense, the structure is formed using a subject, followed by the words “will be,” followed by the present participle form of a verb (that is, adding the “ing” to the end of the verb). For example, “we’ll be cheering for you.” uses the contraction of “we will,” followed by “be,” followed by “cheering.” Questions are formed by starting the phrase with “will,” followed by the subject, followed by “be,” followed by the present participle form of a verb. Negative forms are created by adding “not” into the structure. Again, contractions are commonly used. This tense is associated with saying something will be in progress at a particular moment in the future, to predict the present indicating what might be occurring currently, for polite enquiries that refer to other people’s plans but do not influence the listener’s intentions, and to refer to future events that are fixed but do not suggest personal intention. The Future Perfect tense uses the form of the word “will,” followed by the word “have,” and then a past participle. For example, “he will have completed his TEFL certification by the end of June.” Questions are created by starting with the word “will,” followed by the subject, followed by the word “have,” and finally the past participle verb form. Negatives include the word “not” in the proper location depending on whether it is a statement or question. The Future Perfect tense is used to say something will have been completed by a certain time in the future. It is a look back on the past or completed action but from a future standpoint (i.e. the past in the future). Sentences using this form of the future tense normally begin with an adverbial expression that helps signal when a future event might be completed. For instance, “at the end of this course, I will have mastered English.” The Future Perfect Continuous tense has the structure of “will have been” followed by the present participle form of a verb. For example, “he will have been sleeping for eight hours.” Questions the word “will,” followed by the subject, followed by “have been,” followed by the present participle form of a verb. Negatives are formed by inserting the word “not” between the words “will” and “have.” This tense is used to indicate how long something will have continued by a certain time. The sentence “By this time tomorrow, I will have been studying for 12 hours” starts with an adverbial expression that begins with “by” similar to the Future Perfect tense, but indicates that the activity continued into the future even though it was discussed in the present. The “Be Going” tense is a very common form of Future Tense. It is formed using the present tense of the “to be” verb, followed by the words “going to,” followed by the base form of a verb. For example, “He is going to walk later.” It is important to recognize the difference between this form of the Future Tense and the very similar Present Continuous tense. The “Be Going” future tense is always followed by a verb whereas the Present Continuous form that uses “to go” does not. To form a question, start with the “to be” form of the verb, followed by the subject, followed by “going to,” followed by the verb. A negative is formed by inserting the word “not” between the “to be” verb and the words “going to.” This form of the Future Tense is used for intentions, predictions based on present evidence, and plans or decisions made before speaking. The Present Simple and Present Continuous tenses as a Future Tense follow the same rules as noted in the Present Tense structures. However, each has a specific usage as a Future Tense. The Present Simple is used as a Future Tense to suggest a more formal situation, for timetables and schedules, or to suggest a more impersonal tone that may imply an outside compulsion. The Present Continuous is used as a Future Tense for definite arrangements and for decisions or plans without a time frame.