Repetition is a powerful tool for learning certain things in a new language. While you certainly don’t want to overdo it, running through a list of vocabulary words, verb forms, or idioms with your students can help smooth over some of their trouble spots, and increase their confidence about speaking and writing what they’ve learned. When balanced with a variety of other speaking, reading, writing, and listening activities, memorization drills can prove to be powerful tools in your teaching arsenal.
So what’s the best way to get your students to rehearse a list of words or phrases that they’ve just got to get memorized? Some teachers write out the list on the board, or print it out on a worksheet - and while those methods can sometimes work, there’s something about flashcards that seems to make memorization a lot more intuitive. Maybe it’s the fact that students can flip through the deck at will, and only see one item at a time. Maybe it’s the friendly pictures and boldly printed words on each card. Whatever it is that makes them so engaging, flashcards are a tried-and-true way to help your students absorb the basics of a new ESL topic.
The 308 flashcard sets available here on BusyTeacher.org are especially handy, because they all come with big, bright pictures and easy-to-read words. They cover all kinds of grammar and vocabulary areas, from body parts and household items to emotions and even technical terms. Here on BusyTeacher.org, you’ll never run out of fun flashcards - whether you’re working through a unit on food, holidays, cultures around the world, or even people and characters from modern pop culture.
Some of our flashcards can help your students learn simple words, while others can help them learn descriptive vocabulary, verb forms, English phonemes, and much more, by challenging them to match the right pictures with the descriptions, tenses, or sounds. From level one students learning the English alphabet, all the way to level five students learning to express themselves with fluency, every ESL learner can have fun and sharpen their language skills with our flashcard sets.
Every single set of flashcards on this site is completely free to use and download - and you have BusyTeacher’s worldwide community of ESL teachers to thank for that. All the worksheets on this site were created by ESL teachers like you - and you can print, duplicate, and share them without paying, or even registering. And if you’ve got a worksheet or flashcard set that’s come especially handy in your classroom, you’re more than welcome to share it with the community by clicking the “Submit a worksheet” button at the bottom of this page.
Got to run to class soon? Just skim through all the flashcard sets using our handy thumbnail view, which lets you get a glimpse of each printable set of flashcards without even downloading it. Once you’ve found one (or a few) that you like, print ‘em off, try ‘em out, and see why thousands of ESL teachers all over the world have made BusyTeacher.org their number-one stop for fun free flashcards!
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A set of 40 cards / flashcards to familiarize the students with classroom supplies vocabulary. They can also be used to talk about what students see in the pictures or to remind them which suppli ...
Summer Activities Flashcards are good for speaking about students' summer holidays at the beginning of a new school year. They also can be used for making dialogues. There are eight nice flashcard ...
A set of cards designed for developing speaking skill at elementary level. Students will learn or reinforce the use of modal verb can/can't to express on's ability. The task is very simple: they ...
A set of Flashcards which can also be used as classroom posters, for presenting the months of the year. A fun way to teach this important topic to lower-level students.
This is a pair work matching game dealing with clothes, footwear and accessories. There are 32 picture cards and 32 word cards; the aim of the game is to match the words and pictures. Teachers&rs ...
A set of cards for teaching the characters and language associated with fairy tales. Recommended for elementary students. Vocabulary included: king, queen, prince, princess, wizard, knight, fairy ...
This is a set of 20 cards / flashcards with animals vocabulary for very young students. This set can be used to teach new words or playing games. Vocabulary included: octopus, rabbit, elephant, ...
Some verbs to broaden your students vocabulary about cooking, such as boiling, broiling, I also include some utensils in the kitchen like pan, pot, oven, etc. you can use it as a warmer for activi ...
This set of cards corresponds with a PPT of the same name, highlighting foods commonly eaten in the summer, especially at picnics, such as Independence Day (or more often referred to as Fourth of ...
A set of cards to encourage conversation. Students will learn or reinforce the use of the past continuous tense. They have to look at the card and make sentences using the affirmative, interrogat ...
A set of flashcards to introduce Summer vocabulary.
Recommended for elementary students. Vocabulary included: beach ball, sunbathing, swimming trunks, camping, cooler, beach chair, lifeguard, wa ...
This simple worksheet can be used for revising emotions. Students can work individually and after that they can compare the ideas about the pictures. Also it is a good way of having all active voc ...
Father's Day Special:
Add some fun to your Father's Day lesson with these 14 top-quality flashcards that can be used for several purposes: setting the overall mood for the holiday lesson, templat ...
This is a set of speaking cards to get your students to talk about themselves and to help them to develop their communication skills. Cut out the cards and give them to your students, they must lo ...
A set of conversations cards on second conditional for students to discuss what they'd do in different situations. Cut out the cards, laminate them and ask your students: What would you do if? Ha ...
This is a set of cards to revise Reported Speech (statements, questions and commands). Students take cards in turns and have to change the sentence written on it into the Reported Speech. A grea ...
This is a set of 20 cards on countable and uncountable nouns. They're great not only for vocabulary, but also many sentence patterns. Try them for “ some”/”any”, “ Li ...
Here's a set of 27 cards/ flashcards on phrasal verbs with on and for. Suitable for vocabulary building and discussion practice! Challenge your students to build / say one sentence for each car ...
This is a set of flash cards for teaching the most common illnesses and symptoms. Use them according to the your students' level, as conversation cards on the topic 'health', or just to check if t ...
This power point is divided in two parts: a set of sports flashcards (f/c) and an exercise. Use the set of f/c to introduce or revise vocabulary. Then check students' knowledge with a simple word ...
A set of flashcards on the days of the week, months and seasons. To be used according to age and level of your students as memory games, conversation cards, etc. Contains colourful images to enco ...
Discussion cards on Zodiac Signs vocabulary and personality adjectives. The aim of the activity is to learn adjectives describing personality, and mainly motivate students to get involved in discu ...
This is a set of speaking cards on DESCRIBING PEOPLE each card contains a Picture and related information: name, age , country, physical description, clothes and interests. Students pick up a card ...
Flashcards about days of the week presented by beautiful and colorful clowns to help children memorize the new vocabulary. When printed on A4-sized sheets, they can also be used as classroom poste ...
This is set of cards to get your students talking about the ENVIRONMENT. Each card contains a word and its definition; they are also illustrated with pictures.
Suggestions for how to use these ...
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