SOME TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR PICTURE DESCRIPTION

Targeted Skills

In Question 3, you should be able to:

• pronounce common words correctly.

• use correct stress on syllables and words.

• identify the important features of a photo.

• describe a photo using appropriate vocabulary.

• describe a photo using correct sentence structure

Things to Remember

1.  First, scan the photo. What information will you need in your response?

Brainstorm quickly when you see the image.

2. Next, think about what you want to talk about and how you want to say it. You

have 30 seconds to prepare and 45 seconds to respond.

3. You will hear a beep signaling when to start. Begin your answer with a sentence

starter, such as This is a picture of……..; In this photograph , there are . . . ; In this picture, I see . . . .; The picture shows that……..

TIP 1 Be sure to use the correct noun or pronoun and the correct verb form. You can organize your response by asking yourself: Who or what is the main subject in the photo? Be sure to vary your response by using pronouns as well as different nouns to refer to the people and things in the photo.

TIP 2 Use specific verb tenses and structures for basic descriptions. Make sure you are

comfortable with these tenses: simple present, simple past, and present and past continuous. Also, make sure you can use There is/There are ....

TIP 3 Use adjectives to give more information about people and objects. Adjectives describe nouns, and more than one adjective can be used with a noun. Strings of adjectives follow a specific order in English. In normal speech, English speakers rarely use more than two or three adjectives to describe a noun. This chart will help you figure out the correct order, even if you use only two adjectives together.

TIP 4 Use adverbs to give more information about verbs. Adverbs ending with -ly can specify how something happens (quickly; slowly. Other adverbs are used to describe how often something happens (sometimes, usually, frequently or the level of certainty someone feels about something happening (probably, possibly, supposedly)