Question:
have had success using flashcards (which I made myself) to teach such things
as irregular verbs, prepositions, pronunciation contrasts and ESP vocabulary.
I'm interested in hearing how other teachers have used flashcards, how they have
made them and what kinds of language and activities work best using flashcards.
Also, I's be interested in any research that's been done on why and how
flashcards are an effective teaching aid. Does anyone agree with me that there
is something "magic" about the tactile nature of flashcards- students can touch,
feel and displace some language learning anxiety..
Does anybody know how "Cuisinaire Rods" were developed ? Was there somebody
named Cuisinaire ? Has there been any research on how and why they are
effective ?
Answer:
Pamella Asquith raises the issue of flashcards in memorizing irregular
verb forms. I have always liked this kind of approach to learning
vocabulary and have found it very effective. Before anyone says that
this is just one learning strategy that matches my personal learning
style, let me add that I have used this with all kinds of ESL students
with good success. I think flashcards are especially good for learning
large amounts of "more concrete" vocabulary rapidly, i.e., this system
works better with concrete nouns, basic adjectives (e.g., happy, green,
heavy versus abhorrent, nebulous, demoralizing), concrete verbs, etc.
Some people will not like the idea of cards because it may remind them of
rote learning from lists. I know that is intuitively appealing to talk
about context, but the research to show that learning vocab through context
versus lists is not
solid enough to justify this conclusion, yet it is a teaching point that
I hear over and over: don't learn from lists, you need context. I have
not been able to find a single study showing that learning from lists is
bad. If anyone has some leads on solid research here, I'd be interested
to hear them.
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