The future tense in Spanish L2 textbooks

Abstract

This paper revisits the treatment of the expression of futurity in Spanish foreign language (FL) textbooks. We analyzed twenty college-level Spanish FL textbooks to determine and quantify how futurity is represented. Variationist research has shown the periphrastic future (PF) to be the most frequent variant of futurity followed by the simple present (SP) and the morphological future (MF). Our findings reveal that, despite over two decades of communicative language teaching, Spanish FL textbooks still do not completely present the reality of the expression of futurity. Introductory texts present all three variants of futurity. However, there is a dramatic difference in the formal representation of these three variants in intermediate texts. The PF is formally presented in only four of the ten intermediate texts analyzed. Interestingly, all ten intermediate textbooks include a formal section on the MF. From a formal treatment perspective and unlike native speaker usage, the MF continues to be the futurity variant most often presented to learners, followed by the PF, and the SP, respectively.