Describing People: Appearance Worksheets and Lessons
21 worksheets, 22 lessons, 5 vocabulary decks and 3 shadowing scripts · People & me
Start here — 7 free samples
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Describing people worksheets
21 printable worksheets with answer keys.
Describing people lessons
22 ready lessons for the four skills: teach on the board, set online or print.
Describing people vocabulary
5 word decks with meanings, examples and pronunciation: flip, quiz, print as flashcards or play as a game.
Describing people shadowing
Listen, repeat, record and compare: short scripts for pronunciation and fluency.
About Describing people
Describing what people look like is practical, visual and easy to personalize with photos, which makes it ideal for speaking practice. Learners need it for everyday situations such as identifying someone, and it appears regularly in picture-description tasks in Cambridge exams.
With Kids and A1 learners focus on tall, short, long and short hair, eye color, have/has and be. A2 and B1 add build (slim, well-built), age (in his forties), clothes, and the difference between What does she look like? and What is she like? From B2 upwards learners use compound adjectives such as blue-eyed and curly-haired, modifiers like fairly and rather, speculation with might and must be, and tactful language for sensitive descriptions.
Here you will find printable worksheets, lessons and vocabulary flashcard decks for describing people at every level.
Teaching tips: Describing people
- Play a "police witness" game: show a photo for ten seconds, hide it, and have pairs write the description before comparing with the original.
- Teach adjective order explicitly (opinion, size, age, shape, color) with examples such as "long curly brown hair".
- Correct "She has blue eyes and blond hairs" by highlighting that hair is uncountable when it means the hair on your head.
- Model polite alternatives such as "a bit overweight" or "not very tall" so higher-level students learn to describe people tactfully.
Questions teachers ask
What is the difference between "What does he look like?" and "What is he like?"
The first asks about appearance and the second about personality. Teaching them side by side at A2 prevents a very common mix-up.
Is describing people tested in Cambridge exams?
Yes. Picture description is part of the speaking test at several levels, and describing people also appears in YLE tasks for young learners.
How do I adapt this topic for young learners?
Use pictures and a simple frame such as "She's got long hair and blue eyes", then play guessing games where children identify a character from the description.