Flashcards are great for vocabulary. They help build our spaced memory with repetition. In other words, they are used for drilling, which creates a section in your memory where you store facts. This active recall teaches your brain to remember.
Not drilling!?! How boring?
Drilling like any other practice or exercise is essential to getting better. You do planks to strengthen your tummy. It seems tedious and boring but after 3 months you have abs of steel.
Basketball players run drills up and down the court. Again, they hate them but that keeps them fit and on the team.
Either way, we work for what we want. If you want your students to learn English more effectively, use flashcards.
Flashcards are only for young learners: FALSE!
Yes, when it comes to teaching teens, you can't do the same games or interactive lessons with the flashcards that you do with your tweenies. It won't work. But like everything, when the player changes, you change the game.
Look at the grammar ESL teachers teach from starters to B2 level. All the grammar is the same more or less. It only gets more detailed and complicated the higher the level. Example: Movers are learning the past participle for present perfect while A2 teens are learning the different adverbs that accompany the same grammar.
The complexity of grammar follows the same for using flashcards in class.
The How?
Here is a list of ways to use flashcards for any level:
-Normal drilling (show the cards and explicit words)
-Pairing/ Matching (Pair by words to pictures; words to categories; or translated text)
-Catchphrase (Students pair up to explain a flashcard image/word to their partner or group members)
-Race to the card (Cards are spread across both sides of the room. Individual students from different teams race to touch the flashcard which the teacher has shouted out.)
-Flashcard Call Out (Students create sentences from flashcards provided. If they do it correctly, they get the flashcard. After you've completed the flashcards, the students count how many they have. The one with the most cards is the winner.)
-Make a story (place 3-6 flashcards in a group. Students tell a story using the items displayed on the flashcards)
- I-spy ( Say the first letter of the word on the card. Can act out or give verbal clues. Students guess the word.)
-Go Fish
-Odd One Out (Place four cards out. Students say which one does not relate to the other three. Example: Apple, Banana, Book, Orange. Students should say: Book.)
-Memory Game
-Odd One Out (Place four cards out. Students say which one does not relate to the other three. Example: Apple, Banana, Book, Orange. Students should say: Book.)
-Memory Game
- Musical chairs (place a card on each chair faced down. When the music stops, students turn over their cards. They must say the word or make a sentence with the chosen grammar to keep their seat. Go until all but one student is eliminated.)
-Bingo
-Start a conversation (Students have to ask their partner questions related to the flashcard they are presented. The team that can keep the conversation going the longest without changing topic, wins.)
-Quizlet writing race (Put on the board the mixed words or fill in the blank from a quizlet.com flashcard section. The first student who writes or says the sentence correctly gets a point. Can work for translations as well.)
Find a collection of flashcards at: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Robbie-Lodge
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This is a resource for teachers in ESL. To help the community, please leave comments about other ideas that have worked for you, or how some of these ideas have been successful in your classroom. Thank You.