Describing pictures in ICAO Aviation English tests

Article written by Michael Egerton

What language skills are required?

Quite often the pictures will be of unusual or unexpected events such as damage to an
aircraft, a crash/collision or a malfunctioning piece of the aircrafts equipment. You will
need to develop your vocabulary so that you can easily explain these situations without
being lost for words. As a pilot or controller you will need vocabulary to describe

1. each part of an aircraft,

2. weather and time of day,
3. the physical layout of an airfield and
4. various types of damage that can occur.

You will also need a good command of verb tenses so that you can describe:

what is happening now

what has happened before
what is likely to happen in the future

You should also learn the language skills needed to explain why these events have
occurred. This will involve (among others) modal verbs of possibility/probability,
conjunctions and infinitives of purpose.

You should also use prepositions to describe the physical location, or path of movement
of the various objects in the picture.

Phrases for describing pictures

Start by giving a brief description of each picture.

The picture/photo shows

This is a picture of
In this picture I can see
This is an incident that happened

There are different phrases you can refer to parts of each pictures. For example:

on the left / on the right (hand side)

in the background / in the foreground
behind x / in front of x

Depending on the picture you will need to use appropriate tenses. For example:
 an aircraft is trying to land (present continuous because it is something happening
at the moment the photo was taken)
the aircraft in this picture has collided with a ground vehicle (present perfect
because it is something that happened in the recent past with a result in the
present)
a ground vehicle is about to make a wrong turn that will surely cause a problem
for aircraft that are landing.

The assessor might also ask you to give your opinion about the picture.

In my opinion
I think that
It looks like
x seems to be

Five tips for describing pictures in the ICAO English

test
1. Keep it simple
Try to avoid complicated expressions or grammatical structures if you are not sure how to
use them. Dont waffle (speak unnecessarily about a topic), and if you have nothing to
say its better to wait for the assessor to prompt you.

2. Ask the assessor for an explanation if you dont understand the task
If you dont understand what you are supposed to do, ask the assessor to explain. For
example, you could say: Could you repeat the question, please?

3. Use full sentences

Avoid answers which are single words or answers that sound like a list of bullet points.
Demonstrate that you know how to form sentences correctly and can use a range of
structures to express yourself.

4. Be aware of the time limits

When you are asked to describe a photo and explain why something has happened, make
sure that you leave some time for explaining your own opinion if that is a required part of
the task. You should also avoid rushing, as speaking slowly and clearly is an essential
skill in aeronautical communications You will have better pronunciation if you slow
down and dont swallow your words.

5. Practice
Before the ICAO English test, practice describing pictures with a colleague.