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There are many ways of using flashcards in the classroom. We can use them in the Engage and Activate stage of the lesson, for warming up, eliciting, practicing, reviewing vocabulary and grammar. No matter the class size and student’s age, there are activities that can be done including flashcards that can make the class very interesting. For example, the first way that we can use flashcards is in the Engage stage of the lesson, when we want to elicit new vocabulary. We can use flashcards depicting the images of the new vocabulary. Sometimes, showing an image of the word instead of explaining it can save us a lot of time. If we want to review old content, we can use the flashcards to briefly go through the material. We can combine this with drilling exercises as well, to check if our students can pronounce the words correctly. For example, if we want to do a group activity about sentence structure when we are explaining the new material, we can use flashcards with the words of the sentence on them, to rearrange it easily and visually present the right way the sentence is formed. This exercise can be done by the teacher and then practiced with different vocabulary flashcards by the students. One of the most popular ways of using flashcards is with the Memory game. For this game we need pairs of flashcards (image and matching word, or two same images), the flashcards are then left face down on the floor and students take turns to pick two cards and play the game. Another way of playing the game is to devide the students in two groups, and one group to get the pictures and the second group to get the words, and then take turns to give clues about their cards and guess the item. Flashcards can engage “activate recall” a mental facility for remembering new knowledge. Because flashcards facilitate repetition they create a good way to new memory. A different group game with flashcards is Pictionary. In this game every round one student from each group has to pick a word card and draw it on board. The students team has 15-30 sec. to guess the word. At the end the team with more points wins. The spelling game is a great way of practicing vocabulary. It can be played in groups, team agents team, or student by student agents the rest. The rule is, one student to pick a card and spell it out and the rest of the students guess the word as fast as possible. There are a lot of fun and useful ways to use flashcards. The best part is that they can be a part of any activity and exercise, and yet they are very practical. They can be made easily to suit any topic, and they don’t take a lot of space. It is true that they have the reputation as being a boring way to study, but when put in the right use, flashcards become irreplaceable.
