Pros Cons: The Use of Flashcards in The Class
Flashcard is a card with a picture and vocabulary on it. Flashcard is one of the media that can be used in Teaching English as a Foreign Language(TEFL) media for students. The teacher shows the flashcards to students, and they will memorize the vocabulary based on the picture and word on the flashcards. It is easy to use, and helps students memorize the vocabulary easily, due to the picture that flashcards use. Although some people oppose flashcards as a TEFL media for students, there is some evidence that using flashcards as a TEFL media for students yield positive results, because of students’ increasing vocabulary, gaining interest of students, and easier learning process.
Opponents of flashcards as a TEFL media for students declare that students cannot increase vocabulary because of focus fallacy with the pictures that flashcards use. However, the picture that flashcards use as a TEFL media for students helps them memorize the vocabulary easily. Taken from Indriana (2011) flashcards help students in summarizing and memorizing because learning with media is very fun to students.
Opponents also state that flashcards bother the process of learning because students will be bored when the teacher presents the media. However, using flashcards gain students’ interest. “By presenting media in class, especially flashcards, the students will be interested to learn English vocabulary.” (Rahmasari, 2016). Students will be more excited and interested by using flashcards.
The final argument advanced by opponents of flashcards as a TEFL media for students is that flashcards waste time because students are repeating the same vocabulary. However, the media helps the learning process become easier to deliver and it will not be wasteful. According to Hamer (2018), the use of media makes the students get a better understanding of the lesson being learned. Flashcard is genuinely beneficial for the students and the teachers.
It should be evident that the arguments against using flashcards as a TEFL media for students are not valid. Many researchers have found the evidence that flashcards help students increase their vocabulary, gain students’ interest, and the learning process becomes easier to deliver. Therefore, in my opinion, using flashcards as a TEFL media for students has a good impact for them to increase the vocabulary.
References:
- Indriana, D. (2011). Ragam Alat Bantu Media Pengajaran.DIVA Press.
- Septarini Rahmasari, B. (2016).The Use of Flashcards In Teaching Vocabulary At Fourth Grade Students of SDN Sukosari 02 Dagangan Madiun. Jurnal Pendidikan Edutama, 3(1),1–10. http://doi.org/10.30734/jpe.v3i1.26
- Hamer, W., & Rohimajaya, N. (2018). Using Flash Card as Instructional Media to Enrich the Students’ Vocabulary Mastery in Learning English. Journal Of English Language Studies, 3(2), 167. https://doi.org/10.30870/jels.v3i2.3875
