IELTS Listening — Plans and Prepositions

We use plans regularly in our daily lives. Whether you visit a theme park, a museum, or a travel agent, there will be some plans to follow. Do you cook? Well, guess what, you’re reading a plan!

Let’s look at this plan Classroom Plan:

Can you describe to somebody where the art station can be found?

Where is the teacher’s desk located?

How to Describe a Location

To understand the description of a plan, you need to recognise the language used when describing locations.

We often use Prepositions of Place to provide location details.

You might already know or use a few already like: near or next to. Here are some of our favourites to help you out;

On the right-hand side

Close to

Opposite

On the left-hand side

By

Across

In the middle of

Between

In front of

Let’s try answering the questions from before, using our new propositions of place.

Example Question: Where is the teacher’s desk located?

Example Answer: The teacher’s desk is located opposite the entrance, in the left-hand side corner of the room.

How to Describe Where Something Is

You might need to describe where an object is to other things. To explain this relationship, we use prepositions to indicate the location of something in space and the relation.

Let’s look at a few examples below…

IN

We use IN if an object is INSIDE something. For example, the milk is contained IN the bottle. It’s in an enclosed space or includes borders.

ON

We use ON if something has a surface and we’re talking about something touching it. For example, the books are ON the shelf.

AT

We use AT to talk about a specific place, location, or point. For example, the shop is at 20 Oxford St, London.

Want to give it a go?

Try using the prepositions above and explain the location of things around you.

What’s behind you? In front of you? In the left-hand side corner of your room?

Explore and see how many sentences you can make when describing things around your room.

Need more help?

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I hope to see you in the next class, and keep up the excellent work reading about prepositions!