Future Tense Activity Ideas for Spanish Class

The Future Tense is one that my students enjoy the most! We teach this tense after present and past. They’re tired of talking about what already happened and are naturally looking towards the future! They love to talk about what life will be like for them in 5, 10 and 20 years. Here are some future tense activity ideas for Spanish class!

Future Tense Activities for Writing

Novice: Have students write short sentences in an image of a crystal ball about what they will do in the future

Intermediate: Ask students to create a Google Slides presentation. On each slide, they should write 2-3 sentences about what life will be like. Encourage them to use linking words to add sophistication. (Click that link for a free reference list!) Ask them to include a picture too! They can talk about themselves, others, the world, etc. Provide a set of guidelines and a rubric. This activity makes the perfect “fast finisher” or time filler for students to work on a little at a time!

Group: In almost every unit, I incorporate a group writing challenge. Writing together helps every student; they learn from each other and clarify mistakes. The topics are fun and allow them to be creative. I collect everyone’s paper, but only grade one per group. That allows me to give specific feedback, but on a much smaller scale. And I always make up reasons for prizes to be awarded!

Listening Activities for Future Tense

There are so many choices for how to practice listening!

Basic: What tense are you hearing? In this activity, the teacher can say or record a series of sentences. The focus of this activity is to help students recognize key words and endings that indicate a specific time frame. For example: If the teacher reads: “Yo asistiré a la Universidad de Granada dentro de 4 años.”, we would want our students to pick up on the key phrase “within 4 years” and hopefully the verb conjugation as well. To contrast, another sentence could be, “Hoy, yo asisto a una reunión del club de español.”, and we want them to recognize the key word “today” and the present tense verb ending. For students who are learning Spanish in a classroom setting, helping them realize how to place what they hear in a time frame is a useful skill to practice, but we hope to move on to more complex things like:

Intermediate: Listen to 2 recordings about different people’s future plans. Take notes about what you hear, and use them to answer both multiple choice and open-ended questions. The questions should include things like identifying details and also drawing conclusions and compare/contrast. For example: Who will have a more successful future? Justify your answer answer with details from what you heard.

Group: Whenever possible, make it a game! Create or find a listening activity. Then, create some manipulatives. For example, you can print out the name of each character from your listening. Or you can print out certain quotes or paraphrases. After hearing the main listening passage, ask pre-written questions like: Who said X? Or, Who would be most likely to do Y? Then you could switch tactics and say something like: “What Maria said about her future job”, or Where Juan wants to live in the future.” Students work in pairs to identify and/or collect the correct slips of paper. The person with the most at the end wins!

Song: This idea can also work by playing a song with the future tense. Print the lyrics and cut them up into sections. Ask students to spread them out on their desk, and as they listen, put the lyrics back in order!

Future Tense Activity Ideas for Spanish Class cont.

In another post, we can talk about Speaking and Reading ideas for Future tense! For now, I hope your wheels are turning with some new, fun ideas for your students!