Frequently Asked Questions
The questions visitors ask most often before signing up. If something isn't covered here, the contact page is the best way to reach us.
Audience and fit
Who is Teacher Elf for?
Teachers, tutors, homeschool parents, and people learning on their own are all welcome. You don't need to work at a school to sign up. One limit today: each class has a single teacher, so colleagues can't share a class.
Does it work for subjects other than languages?
Yes. Flashcard decks work for vocabulary, history dates, math facts, science terms, anything you can express as a question/answer pair. Multiple Choice, Matching Pairs, Connect Pairs, and Fill in the Blank work with every deck. Word games like Hangman, Word Search, Anagram, and Spelling join in when the answers are words, such as capitals or science terms. Only the Dictation game and the AI Tutor's spoken-conversation practice are language-specific. Live Quiz is a host-and-play multiplayer format that runs on any deck.
Getting started
Do students need to create accounts or share an email address?
No. Teachers create student accounts on the student's behalf, typically a username and a password the teacher manages, and no student email is required. For Live Quiz games, students don't even need that: they join from any device with the 6-digit game code shown on the host's screen and a nickname.
Can I import flashcards from Quizlet, Anki, or a spreadsheet?
Mostly yes. Four import paths exist today:
- Anki (.apkg): direct import, including multi-deck collections.
- CSV from Teacher Elf: re-import CSV files previously exported from Teacher Elf itself.
- Paste from anywhere: paste rows copied from a spreadsheet or exported from another flashcard app, and the import screen detects how each card is split.
- OCR from images: extract flashcards from a photo of a printed vocabulary list.
There is no one-click import from a Quizlet link. Instead, export the set as text in Quizlet (most flashcard apps can do this) and paste it straight in. If you get stuck bringing a set over, the contact page is the place to ask.
What does a typical first session look like?
Typically about five minutes from sign-up to a running quiz. After signing up as a teacher, you create a class, then either build a deck from scratch or copy one from the public deck library. From there you can assign the deck or host a Live Quiz, and students join with the 6-digit game code shown on the host's screen. Student accounts can be added later; Live Quiz works without them.
Privacy and AI
How is student data handled?
Students don't need an email to use Teacher Elf. Their data isn't sold or used for ads. The Privacy Policy has the full details.
What happens to AI Tutor chats?
Chats with the AI Tutor are sent to an AI provider to write the replies. The AI Tutor is optional, and the rest of Teacher Elf works without it. The Privacy Policy has the details.
Collaboration
Can multiple teachers share a class or a deck?
Not today. A class has a single teacher; there is no co-teaching or co-ownership of student rosters. A class can be transferred wholesale to another teacher (useful for end-of-year handoffs), but not jointly owned. Decks can be made public so other teachers can copy them into their own library, but the copy is independent. There is no shared or simultaneous editing.
Don't see your question?
Teacher Elf is built and shaped by what teachers actually ask for. A few things mentioned above (one-click import from a Quizlet link, classes with several teachers, shared deck editing) aren't built today, but they are all reasonable additions when enough teachers ask. The fastest way to nudge something onto the list, or to ask anything not covered here, is via the contact page.