Questions about the future are uniquely generative in ESL speaking because they require speculation rather than factual recall. There is no correct answer. Students who know very little about a topic can still speculate about it. And because the future is genuinely uncertain, even the most advanced students are on equal footing with each other.
YapYapGo is a classroom speaking practice tool for ESL and EFL teachers with discussion questions across 20 topic categories. Future questions work particularly well in Debate mode - turning a prediction into a debate motion ("AI will eliminate more jobs than it creates") generates structured argument from speculative content. A debate timer handles the structure automatically.A2: Personal futures (questions 1-10)
- What job would you like to have in five years?
- Where do you think you will be living in ten years?
- Do you plan to get married or have children?
- What is one thing you hope will be different about your life in five years?
- What skill do you want to learn in the next year?
- Do you think you will stay in the same city or move somewhere new?
- What would your ideal future home look like?
- Do you think your life will be better or worse than your parents' lives?
- What country would you like to visit in the future?
- What is something you are looking forward to in the near future?
B1: Near future society (questions 11-25)
- Do you think electric cars will replace petrol cars completely in your lifetime?
- Will people work shorter weeks in the future? Would that be good?
- Do you think people will travel to space as tourists in your lifetime?
- Will we solve climate change? How?
- Do you think social media will still be popular in 20 years?
- Will robots do most household tasks in the future?
- Do you think technology will make people's lives easier or more complicated?
- Will people live longer in the future? Is that a good thing?
- Do you think schools will look very different in 50 years?
- Will English still be the global language in 100 years?
- Do you think remote work will become permanent for most office jobs?
- Will cities become more or less crowded in the future?
- Do you think people will eat less meat in the future?
- What technology do you think will be most important in ten years?
- Will the world be more or less peaceful in 50 years?
Tool tip: YapYapGo filters questions by CEFR level and age group. For future topics, the this-or-that generator produces quick binary-choice warm-ups: "In 20 years, will you be working more or less than now?" A conversation topic generator provides additional speculative prompts.
B2: Systemic and social futures (questions 26-40)
- How will AI change the nature of creative work in the next decade?
- Do you think democracy will be stronger or weaker globally in 50 years?
- Will physical money disappear entirely in your lifetime?
- How will climate change reshape where people live in the coming decades?
- Will genetic engineering change what it means to be human?
- Do you think inequality will increase or decrease as technology advances?
- How will ageing populations change society in developed countries?
- Will people in the future be more or less religious than today?
- Do you think national borders will matter more or less in 50 years?
- How will the relationship between humans and nature change?
- Will we achieve genuine gender equality within the next generation?
- How will the rise of China and India reshape the global order?
- Will space colonisation be a realistic option within 100 years?
- How will future generations judge the decisions we're making now?
- Do you think people in 2100 will be happier than people today?
C1: Abstract and philosophical futures (questions 41-50)
- "The most important thing we can do for the future is things we cannot yet imagine." How do you evaluate this claim?
- To what extent do you think the future is determined by structural forces rather than individual choices?
- Is technological acceleration inevitable, or is it something societies could choose to slow?
- How should we weigh the interests of future generations against the needs of people alive today?
- Is optimism about the future a rational position or a cognitive bias?
- What is the biggest risk to humanity in the next 100 years - and is it avoidable?
- How does the way we imagine the future shape the decisions we make in the present?
- Is progress linear, or is civilisational collapse a genuine possibility?
- "The future belongs to those who can imagine it." To what extent is this true?
- If you could send one piece of advice to people living in 2076, what would it be?
For related speculative discussion resources, see controversial but classroom-safe discussion topics and 50 ESL discussion questions about technology.
Sources:
- Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom. Cambridge University Press. - Speculative tasks engage imagination and produce extended production.
- Foster, P. & Skehan, P. (1996). The Influence of Planning and Task Type. Studies in Second Language Acquisition. - Opinion tasks on non-factual topics produce complex grammatical output.