ELL+and+Membean

ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS Membean Let’s face it; students don’t really get much out of memorizing lists of words for weekly vocabulary quizzes. They study the words for the quiz and then they forget them. They rarely use them in conversation or incorporate them in their writing. Membean makes learning vocabulary fun, relevant and allows the students to control how much he or she learns. It can even be used to help with SAT test preparation. Students take an initial placement test so Membean can calibrate the students’ experience based on their prior knowledge. There are 6 possible levels, so this means that they can change levels as the year goes on. Students can set a time limit on their training sessions. Studies have shown that shorter and more frequent sessions are better than longer ones. Membean offers students’ pronunciation cues, contextual use, word ingredients, and examples from movies. Ruth Reynard stated, “ The effective use of Web2 tools requires students to be active throughout the process and that work should be reflected in the final grade for the assignment.” The exercises are engaging, and the students are motivated to “level up.” Students have to be active during this process to “earn a good grade.” Reynard also said, “Actual learning takes place when what is understood is applied in some meaningful context of use…we tend to always know what we use on a regular basis and/or what has been integrated into our professional practice or knowledge base for life and work.” Membean delivers on this front, too.

The first barrier of associated with this tool is cost. Your school has to be willing to pay for the product. A second possible barrier the students could face might be Internet accessibility; not every student has access at home. One way to overcome this barrier is to structure class time to allow the students to log onto the website for a specified amount of time. While this is not an optimal solution, it is feasible. Another barrier is (specific to screen readers), “The language of the document is not identified.” This is problematic because “the language of the page allows screen readers to read the content in the appropriate language.” The teacher can help a student overcome this barrier with a candid conversation on how to access and use the website. The pros of using Membean to help students develop a deep, rich vocabulary far outweighs the cons.

[|http://wave.webaim.org/report#/www.membean.com] Reynard, Ph.D., R. (2009, April 1). 3 Challenges to Wiki Use in Instruction -- The Journal. Retrieved August 7, 2015. WAVE Web Accessibility Tool. (n.d.). Retrieved August 9, 2015.