Activities for Teaching the Future Tense

This evening, my dear friend Annie told me about an activity a colleague of hers used when teaching the future tense.  She asked her students to write a letter to their future self five years from now.  It souned interesting.  Then online I found the same activity used not to teach the language pattern, but as a self-monitoring, goal-setting exercise.

http://personalexcellence.co/blog/writing-a-letter-to-your-future-self/

If you cannot get linked to the website, part of the article can be found at the end of this blog entry.

When I taught the future tense in junior high school years ago, I had students to act as a fortune teller and tell thier partner what will happen to them in the future.  Students found this activity interesting and they employed their imagination to the full.

A variation of this activity is to ask students to base their prediction on the current condition.  For example, student A tells student B:

"Because you practice piano every day, you will become a great     pianist."

When an activity connects the language form with its function, then it is meaningful and communicative.  Students will use the pattern as it is used in an authentic situation.  They use it to communicate, and that is the purpose of learning a language.

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Writing a Letter To Your Future Self

Writing a letter to your future self is an exercise which I thought of back in 2006. It was inspired from when I chanced upon the Yahoo! Time Capsule project. Essentially, this is similar to the concept of a time capsule, where you write a personal note to your future self, seal it and only open it at a future moment in time. There are no restrictions on the time duration either – it can be 1 year later, 3 years later, 5 years later, 10 years later, or even 20 years later!

Why Write A Letter To Your Future Self?

Doing this exercise can be a really insightful experience.

Just imagine writing a letter to your future self 5 years from now, then opening it at that exact moment 5 years down the road to see how much of it resonated with you. It is a useful supplementary tool to be used in goal achievement, because when you write the letter to your future self, it helps crystallize exactly how you anticipate yourself to become at that specific moment down the road.

As you read the letter in the future, you can assess how many things match up (or not) vs. your expectations in the past and think about why that’s the case. Often times, the goals we set and our goal achievement process are subjected to a lot of changes along the way, due to varying obstacles, unanticipated circumstances and changing priorities. The letter gives you a macro-view of your initial vision and lets you recognize how your current vision differs from the past.

In addition to that, at the very moment you are writing the letter, your consciousness is captured and stored right there in those words. When you open the letter in the future, you as your future self gets to compare how you used to be in the past and compare with how you are currently. This lets you see in totality how much things have changed since then – and this can be a really intriguing experience. It’s interesting to just see how much you have grown/changed since you wrote the letter

What To Write About

1. Look at today’s date. Now imagine you writing to yourself, exactly X years from now. What do you want to say to your future self?
   
   
   
   • How do you want your future self to be like 1 year in the future?
   
   
   • What are the different dreams and goals you would want to be realized by then?
   
   
   • What is your desired status of the areas of your life wheel at that time? Career/Business/Studies? Finances? Family? Friends? Love? Health? Spirituality? Recreation? Personal growth? Contribution?
   
   
   
   


2. Once you’re done, sign off your name with today’s date.


3. Safekeep your letter.
   
   
   
   • Put the papers in an envelope. Seal it.
   
   
   • On the cover, write “To [Your Name]. To be opened on [Date]“. Replace [Your Name] with your name, with [Date] the date that’s 1 year from now.
   
   
   • Set in your calendar to open your letter 1 year from now.
   
   
   • Put this envelope in a safe place where no one can access to it.
   
   
   
   


4. Live your life like you’ve never lived it before in the next 1 year. Open the letter 1 year later and relish in nostalgia, love and joy as you read the letter from yourself 1 year ago.

You can either write it as hard copy (for a greater sense of nostalgia due to the aging condition of paper by then) or have it as a digital soft copy. I personally wrote a hard copy, then transferred it into soft copy document on my computer just in case I lost the hard copy. You can also try FutureMe.org, an online time capsule service that stores and sends information to a specified email address any time in the future you specify. Personally I prefer to have a copy by my side.

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Write Your Letter To Your Future Self

Take out a pen and paper right now and start writing your letter to your future self. Identify a time period to write to, imagine how you will be like during that time period, then start writing. Think about the type of person you will be, your place in life, what you would have accomplished then, the kind of thoughts and feelings you will experience, and so on.

At the end of the letter, seal it in an envelope, write the date to open it on the cover and put it in a safe storage space. Fix the date to open this letter in your personal calendar. When you open this sometime in the near future, you might gain additional insights about yourself and your journey in the past few years that you were oblivious to.