Make up short dialogues using these descriptions.

a) Our grandmother is over 60 but she is still an energetic and attractive person. It is only now that she is beginning to show signs of old age – her hair has started to go grey and her skin is dry.

b) My elder brother is 23. He is of medium height and build, a bit stocky, but strong with it. He has long straight shoulder-length hair and doesn’t want to get it cut. It’s fashionable in Britain at the moment for men to grow their hair. Usually he wears a comfortable T-shirt and jeans. He doesn’t care much what he looks like.

c) My friend is a pretty girl of 25. She is thin, slender and stylish. She has got lovely dark hair and looks like a teenager.

d) She was not pretty, but she had an amusing face, with a little tilted nose, a wide mouth and greenish blue eyes; her brown hair was simply done. She was very thin and her chest was almost as flat as a boy’s.

e) Tom is very tall, he towers above me even though he is only 15. He does quite a lot of sport. So he is quite strong and has well-developed muscles. He has straight brown hair, which refuses to lie flat and is always sticking up.

f) He’s about 25, medium build and he’s got wavy brown hair, and the last time I saw him he had a bushy moustache. He has been a researcher at the University for three years, so he looks very serious and academic. In fact I’m pretty sure that he wears glasses now.

Describe the appearance of each member of your family, using the text as a model.

a) My father is tall. He has large hands and his feet are size 45. He has short, dark, curly hair and a small beard. His arms, legs and chest are hairy. He’s a cheerful person and when he laughs, you can see even white teeth. He wears spectacles and you can’t see his eyes, but I know they are steel grey. He’s 43. He usually wears jeans and checked shirts or sweaters. But for work he wears a suit and a tie and looks every inch a teacher.

b) My mother is a very different person. She’s short and plumpish. She has small hands and feet. She has long, straight, fair hair. She has dimples and rosy cheeks. She has long eyelashes, which she darkens with mascara. She likes pink nail-varnish, high-heeled shoes and fashionable clothes. Her favourite colours are red and light blue.

c) My 20-year-old sister likes to be well-dressed. She uses lots of make-up, is always going to the hairdresser’s and has fantastic hairstyles. She is tall and slim, with slender arms and elegant legs. Her full lips are always red. She’s open-minded and nice. She is married and has a baby.

d) My baby-nephew is still just a toddler; he can’t speak yet, but he’s very selfish and he bores me.

Get some pictures and describe the people in them (eyes, hair, complexion, nose, shape of face, height, build, etc.)

Describe your friends/ groupmates. The others will try to guess which you are describing.

Listen to someone describing a person’s face. As you listen, draw the face and then compare the result with your partner. Are there any differences between the two drawings?

Loose, wavy brown hair hung to her waist at the back – she had a fringe over her forehead that almost hid her pale blue eyes. The nose – not her best feature – was long but not ugly. She had a regular set of white teeth and was full-lipped. Her round face often looked rather sallow in complexion; she wasn’t very tall or slim, and she walked with slightly-rounded shoulders.

7. A friend of yours is going to get married. Ask him/ her about his/ her fiancé/ fiancée.

You want to know how your friend looks like after disease/ a span of time/ holidays/ plastic surgery. Act out a conversation with him/ her.

Use your imagination and describe Cleopatra’s (Nephertiti’s) appearance. Do you think our perception of the ideal face and figure has changed with centuries? Why do you think so? Do you think people’s idea of beauty is different in different cultures? Do you think the idea of beauty will be different in 2100?

From your experience, do artistic people (i.e. those who play musical instrument, paint, draw, sing, act, dance) have a special physical appearance? If so, what do they usually look like?

Explain the following statements giving the description of an imaginary person.

a) He looks like a huge bear.

b) She looks like a wild flower.

c) He is as ugly as sin.

d) Sue is as pretty as a picture.

e) My aunt is over 40, but she doesn’t look her age.

f) He took after his father’s side of the family.

g) When you meet her, the first thing you notice is…

h) My greatest passion is Beatles.

Comment on the following statements.

a) Outward appearance means much more in the life of a woman than that of a man.

b) A man is as old as he feels, and a woman as old as she looks.

c) Men and women in the city and in the country look as if they belong to different age groups.

d) Physically over-developed men featured by many advertisements are not in the least attractive. Most men do not look like Rambo and do not want to either, because not everyone is tall and practices weight-lifting! Many women also think it’s absolutely tasteless and they prefer more normal human beings.

e) Appearances are deceptive. You can’t always judge by looks.

f) He that is not handsome at twenty, nor strong at thirty, nor wise at forty will never be handsome, strong and wise.

g) A good face is a letter of recommendation.

Read the text and discuss the questions.

How Important Is Your Appearance?

How important is your appearance? Although everyone wants to be good-looking, are beautiful people the happiest people? For example, it must be a problem to be a really beautiful woman because many men may be more interested in looking at you than in talking to you. They think of you as a picture rather than a person. There are also some people who think that women who are exceptionally pretty and men who are particularly handsome must be stupid. They believe that only unattractive people can be intelligent.

On the other hand no one wants to be really ugly and have a face that even your mother doesn’t want to look at; and no one wants to be plain either that is to be neither attractive nor unattractive, and have a face that is easily forgotten.

Being attractive is like being rich: it can help you to find happiness, but it doesn’t always make you happy. So may be the best thing is not to worry too much about how you look, but simply try to be an interesting person, for interesting people have interesting faces and interesting faces are almost always attractive.

 

Think about it:

- Who is the most beautiful woman and the best-looking man you know?

- Do you think it’s difficult to be very good-looking? Why?

- How important is it to look attractive? Why?

- Look at these common English expressions and decide whether you agree with them:

1) Beauty is only skin-deep.

2) Your face is your fortune.

3) Beauty is the eye of the beholder (i.e. the person who is looking).

Reading. Warming-up.

- How do men usually look at women (girl)?

- Do they start with the head and work down or start with the ankles and work up? Why?

- How do women usually look at men?

 

Checkmate.

As she entered the room every eye turned towards her.

When admiring a girl some men start with her head and work down. I start with the ankles and work up.

She wore black high-heeled velvet shoes and a tight-fitting black dress that stopped high enough above the knees to reveal the most perfectly tapering legs. As my eyes continued their upward sweep they paused to take in her narrow waist and slim athletic figure. But it was the oval face that I found captivating, slightly plumpy lips and the largest blue eyes I’ve ever seen, crowned with a head of thick black short-cut hair that literally shone with lustre. Her entrance was all the more breathtaking, because of the surrounding she had chosen. Heads would have turned at a diplomatic reception, a society cocktail party, even a charity-ball, at a chess tournament.

 

Discuss the following.

- What do you think the girl was doing at the chess tournament?

- Can such a girl be a good chess-player? Why?

- This is the beginning of the story “Checkmate” by Jeffry Archer. What do you think could happen at the end of the story?

- What is the first thing you notice in a person (the dress, the eyes, the figure, the hair)?

 

Get some pictures of people from magazines. Two people write their own descriptions of the same picture. Then compare your description with the other person’s.

Expand the stories.

a) My father was forty when he married my mother, who was more than twenty years younger. She was a very beautiful woman and he was a very ugly man. They have been known in the Paris of that day as Beauty and the Beast. My mother was very small, with large brown eyes and hair of rich reddish gold. She had exquisite features, and a lovely skin. She was much admired. My father, on the contrary…

b) Mother was a darling. She used to have her hair in a tight bun, and she looked quite fierce, but she wasn’t really. She had smiling eyes and a head of gold. Father was a very quiet man. He always looked distant as though he were lost in his own thoughts…

Translate into English.

1.Ты великолепно выглядишь. Ты из отпуска? – Да, я только что вернулась из Сочи.

2.Близнецы очень похожи друг на друга. Я не смогу отличить их. Оба черноглазые, широкоплечие, стройные.

3. У нее правильные черты лица и прекрасные глаза. Но больше всего мне нравятся ее волосы, густые, длинные и волнистые.

4. Мой брат среднего роста, но хорошо сложен. У него хорошие манеры, он очень нравится девушкам.

5. – Ты растишь бороду? – Да, а что? – Я не очень люблю мужчин с бородой. – Ну, о вкусах не спорят.

6. Моей маме за сорок, но она выглядит очень молодо. У нее светлые волосы, карие глаза и красивый цвет лица. Она очень энергичная и улыбчивая.

7. Она не была красавицей, но мужчины редко осознавали это, очарованные ее обаянием. У нее было поразительное лицо с темными ресницами и светло-зелеными глазами. Они светились жизнелюбием, и темные густые брови красиво выделялись на магнолиево-белой коже.

8. Красота, как и богатство, не всегда делает человека счастливым, поэтому лучше не волноваться о том, как ты выглядишь, а попытаться быть интересным человеком. У интересных людей всегда интересные лица, в то время как интересные лица не всегда привлекательны.