How would you teach the form going to plus verb used for future plans to a pre-intermediate class?

Answer 1

You could start with two large columns or sides of the white board: In the first column, you might write some sentences using "going to" with a place. You could ask students to help you think of some sentences. You might get sentences like "I am going to the library.", "We are going to New York City." Then you might say, "Everybody knows how to use 'going to' with a place. There is another way to use 'going to.'" Then you might write some sentences like "I am going to wash the dishes.", "We are going to study English." You could ask if the students see the difference between the sentences in the two columns/on the different sides of the board. You could then ask the students to generate some sentences in order to verify that they have the idea.

The advantage of showing these two usages together; if we don't, the students have trouble realizing that the two usages involve the same words with different meanings.

Students might have heard the pronunciation "gonna," so this might be a time to address that if the question arises. Show that "gonna" is spelled "g-o-i-n-g t-o" and that "gonna" is a common relaxed pronunciation of "going to" when it is used with a verb.