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Communicative functions: Talking about experience

Who or what is involved?

Describing people, animals, places and things

We often use language to describe the people, places and things in our world.

The children's favourite teacher, Miss Lee, is worried because all of her young pupils are tired and listless. The boy sitting in the front desk is asleep and the girl in the pink dress is making big, loud yawns.

We can describe people, places and things by using adjectives:

function	example
appearance (eg size, shape, colour)	the pink* dress*
the senses (eg touch, sight, hearing, smell)	loud yawns
personal details (eg age, nationality)	her young* pupils*
qualities (eg personality, character, attributes)	their favourite* teacher*
situations (eg weather, conditions)	it's sunny

We can make these descriptions stronger by adding adverbs of degree (the very loud yawns; it's really sunny)

We can also use nouns, especially when describing a particular type of person, place or thing:

	what type?	eg the history* test*
	what's it made of?	eg a lead* pencil*

If we want to be more specific about 'which one', we can use a phrase or a clause after the noun:

	which one?	eg the girl in the pink dress [prepositional phrase]
	which one?	eg the boy sitting in the front desk [relative clause]

We can also describe people by talking about what they do, feel, think or say. For more information, click on the menu on the left:

What is happening?: Doing
What is happening?: Thinking and feeling
What is happening?: Saying

A commonly-used clause pattern for describing is the 'relating clause'. For more information, click on the menu on the left:

What is happening?: Naming and describing

To find out more about describing people, places and things, go to the following sections. (To return to this page, use the back button on your browser.)

Grammar

Here you will find more information about describing people, places and things by using various grammatical features.

Adjectives (eg describing qualities and attributes; classifying things)
The noun group (eg describing, classifying, adding more information)
The prepositional phrase (eg telling more about things)
The adjective group (eg providing a detailed description)
The adjective group (eg structure: adjective + adverb of degree)
Adverbs (eg expressing degree)
Using the clause to represent experience (eg naming and describing)

Text types

Here you will find text types that contain examples of describing people, places and things.

Particular Descriptions (eg describing people and things; describing places)
General Descriptions (eg identifying and describing; describing people and things)
Recounts (eg expressing feelings and opinions)
Instructions (eg talking about materials and tools)
Stories (eg creating characters)
Reviews (eg identifying and describing the characters; expressing opinions and evaluating)
Explanations (eg identifying and describing people and things in a process)
Arguments (eg expressing opinions, evaluations and judgements)
Poems & Rhymes
Advertisements
Weather reports

	Teaching activities
For PrimeTeach teaching activities which provide KS2 students with practice in describing people, animals, places and things, see: A new deputy sheriff Come to Ocean Park Creatures from other planets Did you enjoy the film? Dinosaur fun Earth and space homes Film reviews My new festival The missing patient game Weather words Witches and vampires

Tell me more ...

Introduction
Identifying people, places and things
Making general statements
Referring to a specific person, place or thing
Showing possession
Showing quantities
Describing people, animals, places and things
Making comparisons

Communicative functions: Talking about experience

Describing people, animals, places and things

Grammar

Text types

Teaching activities