Will be & will be doing

[Tedwonny]

Hello,

I've seen native English speakers use a lot of the future continuous tense. For instance, from an email I received earlier on:

Beatrice will be teaching us again this term...

It's perfectly grammatical to say Beatrice will teach us again this term...

What, then, is the subtle differences between the two? What extra information do we get from the progressive aspect? Native speakers, please shed light for us.

Very Many Thanks!

[bhaisahab]

Hello,

I've seen native English speakers use a lot of the future continuous tense. For instance, from an email I received earlier on:

Beatrice will be teaching us again this term...

It's perfectly grammatical to say Beatrice will teach us again this term...

What, then, is the subtle differences between the two? What extra information do we get from the progressive aspect? Native speakers, please shed light for us.

Very Many Thanks!

Welcome to the forums, Tedwonny. There is no practical difference in meaning. You could also write:
"Beatrice is teaching us again..."
"Beatrice is going to be teaching us again..."
"Beatrice is going to teach us again..."
They all have the same essential meaning, "Beatrice is going to be your teacher again this term.""

[Tedwonny]

Thanks a lot for your reply.

I do know they're more or less the same; however, as a student reading for a linguistic degree and crazy about nuances as such, I'm more than happy to hear if there are any subtle differences in semantics at all. There must be some differences in aspects I'm sure.

Could somebody please shed more light on this [future continuous vs. simple future, maybe including the present continuous as well]?

Thanks a million!

[5jj]

Ways of Expressing the Future in English

[Tedwonny]

I have read through "ways of expressing the Future" carefully and delved deeper into this topic. I'm still a bit confused. Much obliged if native English speakers can shed more light on this. I know it's not a big deal pedagogically, but linguistically, I do want to know the difference as a linguistic students.

According to Michael Swan's Practical English Usage, the future progressive is used to refer to future events which are fixed or decided, or which are expected to happen in the normal course of events.

E.g. Professor Baxter will be giving another lecture....

The meaning this conveys seems different from Professor Baxter will give...

Can any native speakers share what comes to mind st. away with regard to the differences between the two? Very Many Thanks indeed

[5jj]

What comes to mind straight away is probably not much. Careful writers may think carefully about which words and grammatical forms they use, but native speakers don't generally analyse what they hear and read; neither do they analyse what they say in general conversation or write informally.

The precise shades of meaning of the two forms you have given can only be clear in context. The link I gave you suggests some of the possibilities.

ps. Swan says rather more about these two forms than you suggest in your post.