Coursebook unit

In this Unit

• Skills: reading comprehension, speaking
• Grammar: The future perfect continuous tense
• Vocabulary: overhead projectors

Warm up

Look at the people in the photograph. Can you guess their occupation? What piece of equipment do you see? Is there one in your classroom?

Reading

Read the passage once and count how many people are speaking.

Bridget, Paul and John are talking about the many years they have worked as English teachers.

“You know,” Bridget says, “by the end of next year, I will have been teaching English for twenty years.”

“Yes,” Paul adds, “and you will have been living in Turdwick for most of that time. What about you, John? How long will you have been teaching?”

“Well,” John says, “I will have been teaching for fourteen years, but I won’t have been teaching all that time here in Turdwick. I will have been working here for twelve years and I will have been living with my wife for twelve years too.”

Now read the passage again. Can you find any examples of the future perfect continuous? Underline them.

Example: We will have been going out for two years.

Speaking

Now get together into groups of three and ask each other how long you will have been doing something by this time next year. And the year after? In five years? Report back to the class.

Example: “Miguel says by this time next year he will have been studying English for ten years. And he still can’t speak it.”

Now get into pairs. Your teacher will tell you if you are Student A or Student B.

Student A, turn to Exercise 432.1.3C (iv) on page 654.

Student B, your teacher will give you a grubby scrap of paper she/he inexpertly photocopied and guillotined earlier.

Follow the instructions and stop looking at the classroom clock.

Note to teachers

There is an activity in the Extra Ideas Pod™where students have to climb on chairs, hold hands, chant future perfect continuous sentences, etc. It should fill up the rest of the time. Or you could just bung a video on.

Word Caddy™—overhead projectors