Anki Review: The Spaced-Repetition Flashcard App ESL Teachers Actually Use

Anki is a free, open-source flashcard program built around a single idea: review each card at the exact moment you're about to forget it. It does this with the SM-2 spaced-repetition algorithm — the same family of schedulers used by SuperMemo since 1987.

The app is available on every major platform:

• Desktop: Windows, macOS, Linux (free, open-source)
• Android: AnkiDroid (free, developed by community contributors)
• iOS: AnkiMobile (paid one-time purchase — funds Anki's development)
• Browser: AnkiWeb (free, for studying on any device)

Cards can include text, audio, images, video, and LaTeX. Decks are fully customizable — you control the layout, the review intervals, and even the styling with CSS. For an ESL teacher, the practical consequence is simple: students spend less total study time and remember more words.

Anki works best when it plays a supporting role in your teaching, not the main one. The teachers who get the most out of it use it for these specific jobs:

• Vocabulary reinforcement between classes: assign 10-20 new words per week as an Anki deck. Students do daily 5-10 minute reviews. Six weeks later, retention rates are noticeably better than with weekly vocabulary lists.
• Irregular verb and past simple drilling: Anki handles conjugation tables and cloze-deletion cards better than any quiz tool. The audio autoplay feature makes it work for pronunciation practice too.
• Pre-made deck curation: instead of building from scratch, point students to high-quality shared decks on AnkiWeb — e.g. the "English Top 5000 Words with Pictures" deck. Customize, then share as a single .apkg file.
• Exam prep (IELTS, TOEFL, Cambridge): dedicated decks exist for each test's word list. Students can sync across phone, laptop, and tablet without losing progress.
• Phrasal verbs and idioms: cards with example sentences in context beat definition-only cards. Anki handles "card type" definitions that include audio + image + example sentence on one side.

Yes — but with the caveat that Anki is a tool for disciplined learners, not a gamified habit-builder. If your students will happily open an app and tap through 50 cards a day, Anki outperforms Quizlet, Memrise, and almost every paid alternative on raw retention.

If your students need bright colors, streaks, and competition to stay motivated, Anki will feel like homework. Pair it with a more game-like app for engagement, and use Anki in the background for the actual memorization.

Honest recommendation: for self-directed B2+ learners and med-school-style exam prep, Anki is the best free option that exists, period. For younger learners (under 14) or students who need constant novelty, start with Quizlet and graduate to Anki once the habit is built.