After a short break for lunch, Inhwa and I were back at it for our second half of our tutoring day. For this session, Inhwa actually led it. She began by asking me questions about grammar. She wanted to know the difference between "will" and "be going to" when talking about the future.
Luckily, this is something we had gone over in class with professor Kim in the first week of our TEFL course. I tried my best to explain that "will" was used when expressing something definite - something that you know to be true in the future. This was easily understood, however, "be going to" doesn't necessarily preface something indefinite. In this case, they are not opposites which makes this concept confusing. I explained that "be going to" expresses an action already in place but it can also express an action that will happen in the future, however it is just less definite. There isn't a strong standing behind the action as there is with "will". This explanation was not extremely helpful to Inhwa so I resorted to the internet.
Through the internet, I found some more clear distinctions between the two uses. Here were some of the rules:
1.When we want to talk about future facts or things we believe to be true about the future, we use 'will'.
2.If we are not so certain about the future, we use 'will' with expressions such as 'probably', 'possibly', 'I think', 'I hope'.
3.If you are making a future prediction based on evidence in the present situation, use 'going to'.
4.At the moment of making a decision, use 'will'. Once you have made the decision, talk about it using 'going to'.
These explanations helped significantly. Each rule was followed by a few examples. We went over the examples together and then I had Inhwa write a few of her own. I also gave her example situations and asked which of the two options she would use. She did fairly well with these.
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