Simply hand a card to every other student.
Front-row students quiz the students to their left (back row, to the
right), who receive the card after giving the correct answer.
Much of the time, slower or faster students cause
cards to get "backed up". The teacher must watch for this,
keeping cards evenly distributed to keep everyone involved.
The card passing activity works well with several
different "drillable" types of content. I use it most frequently
with verb conjugation: The quizzing student picks a subject, and the
partner responds with the conjugation.
Quicker students can ask their partner to hide the card, and give the
subject and verb in English. It is not very
good for simple noun-to-noun translation, because students can listen
to what is said by the person before
them.
With nouns, try the activity with actual objects
(mixing masculine, feminine, singular, and plural) and
possessives. Quizzers choose to either hold the object (that pencil,
from the perspective of the person being
quizzed), or give the object to the quizee (these books, from the perspective
of the quizee).
Some classes love this; they ask to play that
"game" with the cards. Most classes like it, and recognize its
value. What’s strange is that about ten percent of classes dread it.
I don’t get it.