Save It and Save Yourself: Flashcards

I have hundreds of flashcards for Russian verbs. It's my area of trouble. Of those hundreds of verbs, I have learned a very small percent. That's probably because one pack of flashcards is under my bed. I'm not sure what happened to the others, but I know I don't study them. My little brother is the exact opposite... in some ways. He loved studying the German flashcards I made him... until he lost them.

Flashcards are a hassle. For each chapter in your run-of-the-mill textbook, there are 50 or more words. For economical students, I've seen flashcards the size of paperclips, or multiple words on the same card. Ultimately, I've found that the most economical thing to do (and the best thing for the trees if you blame your bad grades on saving the planet) is to make digital flashcards.

Or not! Lots of people have already done just that and stored their flashcards on web sites like Flashcard Machine! It is 100% free. And if you register, you can make your own cards or save lists you want to study.

While there is a plethora of material from the RFL books Golosa and Nachalo, there is a... something bigger than a plethora of ESL-specific vocabulary, including the ever-popular 20+ lists called "Essential Words for the TOEFL," "Prefixes and Suffixes," and "Everyday Idioms." However, there are also smaller lists by content, such as "Body Parts."

Unfortunately, just searching for "ESL" will also bring up lists meant for native English speakers, such as words for the SAT or the GRE, though really advanced students may also appreciate this practice.

This is a great site for students, but it is even more useful if teachers post vocabulary lists for discussion topics or tests and e-mail students the links to them to ensure they are working on the right list. Or, for projects, students can also provide their peers with jargon that may be specific to their interests or that will help their presentations be more comprehensible.

I am very partial to the desktop version, called i Study to Go, though it costs about $17. While both versions allow you to create your own cards and study them anywhere, it's a little difficult to pop your laptop open on the bus or get an Internet signal in the deepest subway in the world. Desktop versions allow you to study cards without the Internet, which I like. The Internet gives me the option of playing Mafia Wars instead of studying my flashcards. But the desktop version also allows students to add words to their iPods.

The best program for this, in my opinion, is actually Flash My Brain, which allows cards to also be downloaded to cell phones or PDAs, in addition to including talking flashcards and memory games. It costs $30, so if you're going for mobility, the extra cost is worth it for this program over the other one.



Whichever you choose, I've found it very beneficial to be able to scroll through a list of Russian words while on the way to class, sitting in a boring class, riding on the bus, and anywhere else you can eat green eggs and ham.