F) The Truth about "Will":
AFAIK "will" is a normal verb - "I am willing", "as God wills" etc. The reason you don't often see it with an 's' is that it is normally in optative mood, (which looks like subjunctive). In the Middle Ages, monks used 'will' to translate the future tense from Latin, French, and Spanish. If one buys into the same fudge, then one has to teach all the time and conditional clause cases which use present simple, as an exception.

Other modals - can, may, shall,must - have no 's' because they come from using an old past tense form.

E) There is a world of difference between the needs of West European students and the needs of, say, SE Asian students. A Romance language speaker starts with a good knowledge of about ten thousand English words; a SE Asian student starts with perhaps a couple of hundred borrowed words at best. To catch up, a SE Asian student needs to learn, say, one hundred words per week for two years - an almost impossible goal. I suspect the whole EFL syllabus (and methodology) originated from dealing with Romance language speakers.

English verbs look pretty simple when compared to all those endings in French, or other inflected languages like Russian, Hungarian, or Armenian, so I've always been amazed at the amount of time and space in EFL textbooks devoted to the vagaries of English verbs and "tenses". Is there a simpler alternative and what would that be?

A) 'will' does not construct a future tense. Any modal verb can do that: eg "Can you come tomorrow?". Projecting 'will' as a 'future' auxiliary logically leads to: "I will can come tomorrow".
At present EFL students have to run thru a long checklist before uttering a single word:
- past, present, or future? Future!
- timetable, plan, already decided or evidence to hand, opinion or prediction, or using a modal ?
For most purposes this is too nuanced; we are overteaching it all.

B) Continous is an aspect: could we not just say anything can be made continuous; and then just concentrate on present continuous. "While we talked, there was an explosion" is not quite a mistake. Again we are overteaching. Far better to concentrate on forming and using the passive which is really common in business and academic writing.

C) One needs to keep a firm grip on achievable goals in EFL. Most students need English for business purposes; some need it for academic purposes or immigration. That means we need to pick out which verbal structures they need to master and which they just need to get the gist of.

D) It's pretty difficult to say anything constructive if you don't understand what the other person is saying. Much more emphasis on listening and wide vocabulary would be more beneficial. Often better if student pick up nuances of verb by hearing it in action, rather than having spaghetti-like "rules" drummed in and endless picky tests. Teaching grammar, grammar, grammar does not work - as any Korean will testify.

Many borrowed words in English which do not end in -ation or -sion are stressed on the antepenultimate syllable: this pattern is evident in Canada -> Canadian, photograph-photographer and so on.

@LK Re your (1): After TEFL-ing twenty years in various countries, I often ignore the course book itself and just work intensively from the listenings provided or from a graded CD such as:

http://english-e-books.net/meet-me-in-istanbul-richard-chisholm/

Works for me if you can get the level and content right: detective stories the best.

Your (2): there must be a new generation: I'm way past my expiry date!

BTW I always have an audio book of Dr Zhivago playing in my car : it certainly helps over time.

@LK your comments reminded me of a student from Eastern Europe whose English was almost indistinguishable from a native speaker, and who never made a mistake with English verbal structures. I was indeed wondering what on earth I could teach them! It turned out they just did not know what "past perfect" was, although they understood and used it correctly whenever needed. Of course they had spent two years in England as a teenager; but what an excellent outcome!

1) I do not agree that cleaning up the terminology will automatically make it that much easier for students. The usage and meaning of English verbal structures is not straightforward and therein lies the rub.

2) English is taught in many diverse situations, and not necessarily with the expectation of producing fluent near-native competence with verbal structures. Factors such as motivation and opportunity are important for the outcome.
Now that we have access to the internet and English is more often being taught to young learners, methodologies are changing, with less emphasis on teaching "grammar" per se in an academic way, and more emphasis on listening to English and using it on a day-by-day basis. We may see a new generation of English learners who are far more adept at verbal usage, in much the same way as many Dutch/Swedish/Danish people are today.

@WW model English : enjoy!

http://gg.govt.nz/sites/all/files/u2/leaders3_201302151006.pdf

Sometimes I think that all the things I today forbid in formal writing will some day be considered perfectly acceptable by the generations to come. "Pretty" will be rehabilitated, contractions everywhere, and one-sentence-per-paragraph the norm. Formal English is sometimes just the older generation resisting change.
I have the honour to remain etc...

@LK Many English teachers would agree with much of what you say. In practice though, course books often dictate the terminology and syllabus used.