Bidding a fond farewell to Quizlet flash cards

They’ve served us well for over 450 episodes.

The Quizlet flash cards were one of the first features of Plain English Plus+ when we first launched the subscription in 2020. And we were happy to include them in the Starter membership, too.

However, the time has come to bid a fond farewell to this feature of the membership. The last flashcard set was last Thursday, Lesson 653.

The flashcards will be removed from PlainEnglish.com starting this week.

Why we are retiring the flash cards

Our main goal is to provide you with the tools you need to upgrade your English and to do it via storytelling. We created the flash card feature to help you learn five new words from each main lesson.

However, there are some challenges to this approach:

• Flash cards are a good way to remember something you have already learned. They are not a good way to learn something new.
• We produced flash card sets with five terms for each lesson. However, flash cards are most effective in large sets, where you can use spaced repetition to reinforce your learning over a long period of time. Our approach was not ideal for learning.
• Quizlet is a good free tool for sharing flash card sets. However, Quizlet sets do not flexibly fit into external websites like PlainEnglish.com. As we continue to improve the online experience for our members, we want to make sure that every part of the site gives our users a consistent, high-quality experience.

In short, it became clear that creating one short flash card set per lesson is not the most effective way to teach new words. And Quizlet is not the best tool for a membership website like Plain English.

Add the flash cards to your Quizlet account

The new layout of the website, scheduled for March 4, 2023, will not include the flash cards. However, you can still access the flash cards from previous lessons via our Quizlet page.

• Log into (or create an account at) Quizlet.com
• Enter this URL: https://quizlet.com/class/11089078
• Browse the sets. You can click “Save and Edit” on any set to make your own set.
• You can study the sets combined by using the “Combine” tool

Additional benefits to your subscription

At Plain English, we don’t like to take things away. So every time we retire a feature, we want to make sure we add new features to your subscription, so you get as much or more total value.

Here’s what you can look forward to at each level:

Starter members

Previously, the Starter membership included access to the flash cards and the interactive translations inside each lesson. We are proud to announce that the Starter membership will now include all our interactive exercises on the Lessons and Expressions page, including:

• Review quiz (for each Story and each new Expression)
• Pronunciation practice (voice recorder)
• Vocabulary practice (match the words)
• Grammar (verb test and preposition fill in the blanks)
• Listening practice (write what you hear)

These exercises are a fantastic way to become more active in English and reinforce your learning. They will be available to all Starter members beginning this week.

Plus+ members

In the Plus+ membership, we have recently revised the way we present the video lessons. What we previously called “video lessons” are now called the Toolkit (check it out here). The individual lessons are now called Toolkit workshops.

We are in the process of revising the existing Toolkit workshops. As we do so, we are adding the following exercises to each one:

• A new weekly quiz on the Expressions page (starting this week)
• A new quiz on each Toolkit workshop (previously called video lessons)
• New interactive writing exercises in new and revised Toolkit workshops

These exercises are a great way to get immediate feedback on your practice and they are all new as of this year.

We can be sad that we’re saying goodbye to Quizlet, but the flash card sets have served us well. Remember, you can always review previous sets via the Quizlet link above. We have no plans to remove the sets and can guarantee they will be available at the above link at least until June 2024.