THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DIGITAL FLASHCARDS IN IMPROVING ENGLISH VOCABULARY MASTERY: A STRUCTURED NARRATIVE REVIEW AND PEDAGOGICAL SYNTHESIS

Rafidhah Hanum (Universitas Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh, Indonesia)
Fakhrul Rijal (Universitas Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh, Indonesia)
Muhammad Zulhairi Bin Zubairi (Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia)

SENSEI INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EDUCATION AND LINGUISTICS (SIJEL)
Vol. 6 No. 3 (2026): Sensei International Journal of Education and Linguistics

Vocabulary is very important in learning English, but many students forget the words after the test because they only memorize the list. Nowadays there is an application like Quizlet and Anki that can be used to make digital flashcards on the handphone. This article discusses the effectiveness of digital flashcards in improving English vocabulary mastery. The method used is literature review from journals about vocabulary and mobile learning. The result shows that digital flashcards can help the students to remember the words because they must recall the meaning and the application will repeat the words that are still difficult. But if the card only contains the word and the translation, the students only know the meaning and cannot use the word in speaking or writing. Therefore the teacher must add example sentence, pronunciation, and also give the task to use the words.