Will for Immediate Action: Where would you hear it?

As an ESL teacher, one common challenge is helping students understand how to use will for immediate action naturally. Even in advanced conversation groups, it’s often overlooked. This activity is designed to bridge that gap and assist teachers in conveying this concept effectively. With 26 examples across 7 different contexts, students will have the opportunity to practice and master this essential aspect of English.

This printable, projectable, and online-friendly activity offers various ways to engage your students. For example, you can conduct a classic group read-aloud, where each student reads a statement and discusses its context. Alternatively, you can use it as a conversational exercise, challenging students to create short dialogues around the provided phrases.

By immersing students in numerous examples and contexts, this activity aims to make the concept of will for immediate action feel more intuitive. Whether you’re teaching in-person or online, this resource is an effective tool to enhance your students’ understanding and fluency.

You can use this printable, projectable or online friendly activity to practice will for immediate action in any way you want, but here are a couple of our own ideas to inspire you.

• Classic: Go through the activity as a class one student at a time. Each student will read aloud one of the statements and then decide where they might hear it. Other students will decide if they are right or wrong. Move on to the next phrase and the next student.
• Conversational exercise: Put students in pairs or small groups. For each round, give students a time limit, maybe one minute or 90 seconds. Choose a phrase by calling out the number. The groups must take the context even further by coming up with the statement or question that came before the chosen phrase and the one that would come after, as if they were completing a short conversation of three lines.
• Have you got another great idea? Let us know in the comments!

Were you looking for something with will but a bit more about… the future?

Future Simple Speaking Activity