How to Describe a Picture
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
ESL Lesson Plan Describing Pictures A2 teaches students to describe a picture in English using a structured framework: where, who, doing what, wearing what, feeling, and what else. Describing a picture is a common task in Cambridge speaking exams, so learning this structure helps students prepare and feel familiar with the format. Students work with present continuous, clothes and feelings vocabulary, and prepositions of place, applying each to real-life photos before writing and speaking full picture descriptions.
📄B1 ⏱️90 min 📁35 slides
Skills and Outcomes
Use present continuous to describe actions in photos.
Identify and use clothes and feelings vocabulary.
Apply prepositions of place (next to, behind, in front of, between, under, on).
Describe a picture using a six-part structure (where, who, doing what, wearing what, feeling, what else).
Lesson Plan
Lead-in: Spot the Details
Students look at a busy street photo and name ten things they see in two minutes.
Plan: The Describing Picture Framework
Students are introduced to six questions (where, who, doing what, wearing what, feeling, what else) used to structure a picture description.
Matching: Where Is It?
Students match photos to places.
Vocabulary: Irregular Plurals
Students study singular/plural noun pairs (boy/boys, man/men, woman/women, child/children) using photo prompts.
Present Continuous: What Are They Doing?
Students complete missing verbs in present continuous sentences describing photos.
Clothes: What Are They Wearing?
Students unscramble anagrams to find clothing vocabulary from sentence clues.
Feelings: How Do They Feel?
Students select the feeling word that matches people's expressions in photos.
Prepositions of Place Review
Students review key prepositions using a labelled photo of a living room.
Prepositions Practice
Students complete six sentences describing furniture positions.
Position Language: Left, Right, Middle
Students complete a description of three men playing football using position vocabulary.
Foreground and Background
Students complete a picture description distinguishing foreground from background.
Guided Model Descriptions
Students read two full model descriptions and complete a table (where, who, doing what, wearing what, feeling, what else).
Free Speaking Practice
Students describe six new photos using the framework without guidance.
Bonus Game: Draw What You Hear
The teacher describes a photo aloud; students draw what they hear and compare it to the original.