Hi friends! Welcome to this Duolingo English test Speaking Lesson in today's lesson, we're going to take a look at the describe a photo through speaking question type. This question type is so important because it contributes heavily to your production sub score.
And I know a lot of you want to get a good score in production. So in this video, I'm going to show you how to describe a photo well through speaking. But before we begin that if you're new to this channel, Hi, I'm Teacher, Luke from DT very.
com. If you're looking for more tools to study for the Duolingo English test, I recommend you visit our website. That's DETREADY.
COM Okay, anyway, back to this lesson. Describing a photo is not an easy thing to do in English. So I think this video is going to be so helpful.
So what type of photos might you get? For this question? Let's take a look at some sample ones.
Now. There are many different types of photos on this test. Some might look like this one, this one or this one.
Even though there are lots of types of photos, the way you describe them can be the same, which I will show you later in my tips. If you learn a strategy, like I'll show you then you don't have to worry about the type of photo you'll get. Let's talk more about this question.
And then I'll show you those types. Here are the key points of this question type. You have 90 seconds to complete it, but you need to speak for at least 30 seconds.
So the minimum requirement is 30 seconds, but I highly recommend you speak for longer. And of course, I will show you how to do that later in this video. For this question type you have 20 seconds to prepare.
Luckily, you can see the photo while speaking so you don't have to memorize it or anything like that. And it's important to know that you cannot rerecord your answer. You only have one chance to do this correctly, and it contributes to your production and conversation subscores.
So those are the key points. The important ones are that you need to speak for over 30 seconds and that you cannot re record your answer. Remember, you only have one chance at this if you make a mistake, just continue.
Don't start over again. Now let's take a look at the scoring criteria for this question type. And there are four main categories you need to be aware of.
The first category is content. Basically, how well do you describe the photo? Next is grammar and vocabulary.
Duolingo are looking for the level and variety of your grammatical structures and your vocabulary. Next is fluency. And in the Duolingo official guidebook, they say that fluency is how long you can talk for in a limited time.
And lastly, we have pronunciation, which is how clearly you can speak knowing how your score is so important because now you can tailor your answers around the scoring criteria. Remember, you should describe the photo as well as you can use a variety of grammar and vocabulary, use clear pronunciation and speak for as long as you can. If you do all four of those things, you'll score very high for this question type.
But now let's go into some specifics. How can you score well on this question type of based on this criteria? Well, I have five tips for you to help you score better.
And each tip is equally important. So watch this video all the way to the end from now, it will help you a lot when you do this question on the Duolingo English test. And the first tip is to help you score better on content and the tip is don't label.
So what do I mean by labeling? Well, if you look at this photograph here, if a student just labeled the photograph, then the answer would be something like this. It's a coffee shop, I see a barista.
There are lots of shelves, and there is one chair. If you just label the photo, like I did here as an example, then you won't score high for content or grammar and vocabulary. Why?
Well, you're not describing the picture fully, you're just labeling what is in it, and you're only using simple grammatical structures. So don't do that. Instead, you want to describe using descriptive language.
That way you'll describe the photo better, and you'll use more complex grammar and vocabulary, both of which will help you get a really good score for this question type. And here's a better example of that. This is a photo of a stylish and modern coffee shop.
Behind the counter. There are several shelves that have been hung on the wall with plants, bags of coffee, and other items placed on them. An empty wooden chair is facing the counter on the left of the photo.
So this example has lots of descriptive language. These words and phrases in red are what we would consider descriptive language things like adjectives, prepositions, and extra information to describe the photo. Well.
It's important to remember that to get a really good score for this question. You need to use descriptive language in your answer like in this example here, don't just label it. If you label you will not get a good score for this question type.
Of course describing a photo in this much detail is not easy. So you do need to practice this a lot on top of practicing my other tips in this video will help you a lot. So let's move on to tip number two, which is to learn some introductory statements.
Sometimes the hardest thing to do when you're answering a speaking question is actually to begin speaking, a lot of students get stuck because they don't know how to begin. So learn in some introductory statements, basically sentences to introduce your answer will be really helpful. I have five for you here.
You can say this is a picture of this photo shows. In this image there is there are or you can use more adjectives in your answer. For example, this is a stunning photograph off, you can change stunning with another adjective like beautiful.
You can also say, in this photo, I can see. So here are some examples. This is a photograph of a stylish coffee shop with a barista working behind the counter.
This is an image of a young girl riding a horse down a country lane. This is a photo of a highway that leads to a big urban city. And notice in these examples that we use the present simple or present continuous when describing a photo.
So you've given your first sentence, that's great, but now you need to go into detail. And one good way to do that is to describe the location of things in the photo, basically talking about where things are in the photograph. And this is a great way to go into detail for your answer.
So let's look at how you can do that. Now. Tip three, what is where, and there are some ways to do this, you might want to start from left to right or right to left, top to bottom or bottom to top, far to near or near to far.
If you go in a logical order and stick to it, then describing where things are located in a photo becomes a lot easier. And you should also use prepositional phrases for this to the left to the right, on top of above, at the top, in the center, or in the middle, in the corner, at the bottom, under the neath underneath or below. Here are a bunch of extra different ones you can use as well.
Using these types of phrases when describing a photo will be great because you'll describe the photo in lots of detail that will get you a good score for content. And also you'll get a good score for vocabulary because if you use these phrases, well then you will have a diverse set of vocabulary in your answer. And that's what Duolingo wants to see.
Let me show you how to use these in a sample answer. Behind the counter. There are several shelves that have been hung on the wall with plants, bags of coffee, and other items placed on them in front of the shelves.
A barista is hard at work, probably making a cup of coffee. The menu is written on a tall Blackboard, which is to the left of the barista. Also, on the right side of the photo, there's a large coffee machine.
And next to it. There are three other machines that are used to make coffee. As you can see using these prepositional phrases as a great way to describe a photo because your answer becomes very descriptive.
And like I said, That's what Duolingo wants you to do. So that was tip number three talking about what is wearing a photo. But that's not enough.
You can't speak for 60 to 90 seconds just using this technique. You might also want to talk about who is doing what and that's tip number four, who is doing what? In this tip, we want to look at the people or objects in the photo and describe what they are doing.
You can use the present continuous an action verbs to do this well. So let's take a look at this photo. What are the two ladies in this photo doing?
Here's an example answer. A woman in the Navy jacket is pointing a pan at the laptop while the lady in red is reading the information on the screen. How about this photo again, you could say the barista is working behind the counter and waiting for customers to serve.
If there are people or animals or something moving in the photo, then this becomes very easy. You just use the present continuous tense but what if you get a photo which doesn't have an object or a person moving? What can you do then?
Well, let's take a look here. If there's no actions in the photo, you should use the present simple plus an adjective. For example, the boat is stuck on the beach.
As you can see here, you don't need to use complex or difficult grammar to do this. Well. You just need to use the present continuous or present simple tense when we're describing a photo in English we often just use the present tenses.
Okay, now you've learned how to give an introductory restatements talk about the location of things and talk about who is doing what if you could do those three things really well, that will really help you get a better score. But there's one more thing you need to do to get the highest score. And that's use really descriptive language to add details.
And that's tip number five. Use descriptive language. Now the first easy way to use descriptive language to add details is to use adjectives.
Remember, adjectives describe nouns in more detail, and I highly recommend you use as many adjectives as you can when describing the photo. It will boost your score for vocabulary and content. Let's take a look at some examples.
My simple sentence could be this is a photo of a highway that leads to a city. Okay, that's not bad. But let's use some adjectives to describe this photo better.
For example, this is a photo of a busy highway that leads to a large city. How about this example? This is a photo of a man who is giving a presentation with some adjectives your answer could be.
This is a photo of a tall man who is given an important presentation. Using adjectives is a fantastic way to add more details and information to your answer. And you don't need to use complex or really difficult adjectives just simple ones will do fine.
You can also use adverbs as well. Remember, adverbs modify a verb they give more information about the verb. Let's take a look at some examples.
This photo, the beautiful horses are galloping through the green fields. With an adverb you can say the beautiful horses are quickly galloping through the green field. In this sentence, the adverb is after the be verb.
But it can also come at the end of the sentence like this. The beautiful horses are galloping through the green field quickly. Another example.
This is an image of a young girl riding a horse down a country lane with an adverb. This is an image of a young girl riding a horse carefully down a country lane are again at the end of the sentence. Those are five tips.
Now let's look at a full answer to show you how it's constructed from start to finish. This is a photo of a coffee shop with a barista behind the shop counter. The barista is working, possibly making some coffee and waiting for customers to serve.
Behind the counter. There are several shelves that have been hung on the wall with plants, bags of coffee, and other items placed on them. The menu is written on the top of Blackboard, which is to the left of the barista.
Also on the right side of the photo, there's a large coffee machine. And next to it, there are three other machines that are used to make coffee. The coffee shops design is very stylish and natural because the counters and the shelves are made of wood, and the chair in front of the counter is also wooden.
Even though there aren't any customers present at the moment, I think it's likely a popular place for local residents and tourists to visit. Now you know how to describe a photo well through speaking but what about through writing? This video here will help you with that.
You'll learn a structure to describe a photo through writing and I'll show you lots and lots of examples. So click it and I'll see you in this video.
