Membean: a Piquant or Onerous Task?

Membean: The vocabulary website that students either love or hate, but which English teachers love to promote. Even though many students usually dislike this website, they diligently do membean week in and week out. Personally, I enjoy membean because I think that learning new words and expanding my vocabulary will help me when I write essays for other classes and even Beacon articles :). But, I was wondering if Membean is as good as it appears to be.

In my experience, I only sometimes try to use my words outside of class, possibly because a lot of the words aren’t really useful in most conversations, though they are sometimes in academic essays. Also, another thing is that generally, membean seems to give lots of synonyms for a single word. I don’t think its crucial or imperative that I have 5 ways to say not wordy: terse, laconic, tacit, pithy, succinct and also have more ways to say the opposite of this: voluble, verbose, loquacious, etc. Sometimes, learning these words can seem without purpose or reward but I must say when I personally, recognize other people using membean words, I get a little feeling like “hey, that word, I know that word too” and it’s almost like a bit of excitement. I don’t really have the choice to dislike membean as it’s my goal (for English class) to finish the entire thing or level 6 by the end of this school year – I’m close to this with only 100 words left to learn.

I’ve also found some people who like membean too. Candy L, a sophomore, believes that membean is “great; it actually helps [her] extend my vocabulary.” Cathy Z and Sangyoon also agree saying, “Membean is helpful in my opinion” and “It’s beneficial if you do it regularly.” Gabriel, a very committed membean user thinks “[it] is a great way to extend your knowledge of English vocabulary and learn how to apply it in real life. Also, doing membean regularly will make the vocab stick in your head.” However, from what I’ve heard from other students, most people aren’t as positive as Candy, Sangyoon, Cathy, and Gabriel.

Sophia M, a sophomore, is a self-described ‘indifferent’ membean user, but she always makes sure to do at least the minimum requirement of 45 mins per week. She says that she “[likes] membean. But, [she dislikes] the quizzes and [wishes] that it was graded differently.” In our English class, weekly membean practice is counted as an ATL 1, but for other classes, it is apparently counted as a formative grade. Obviously, students care about this because simply completing your weekly membean assignment can either boost (or hurt) your overall grade or just your ATL’s. If you are a student who doesn’t particularly like membean, having it as an ATL grade would probably be nice, but if you do it every week diligently, having it as a formative would be better.

Of course, there are many students like Sophie would aren’t the biggest fans of Membean. For example, Abby P, a solely grade-motivated membean user, states that “I think it’s helpful but not really necessary.” She elaborates by saying “it’s nice to know all these words especially if you’re doing creative writing or something for English class, but I don’t think its important for me to know 5 ways to say the ‘top’ or the best: apex, zenith, acme, apogee, apotheosis etc.”

There were 2 students who (strongly) oppose membean and wished to remain anonymous. Student 1 says that “[they] don’t like it.” Adding that, “it feels like 90% of the vocabulary doesn’t really stick and lots of the sentence examples are bad or illogical. But, it’s a good way to waste time.” The second student also said that “[they] don’t think it’s all that beneficial.” They add that “the way it’s set up just doesn’t work for [them] personally. [Also], the fact that it’s mandatory is just annoying and kind of removes any actual motivation to do it. [For example], a lot of the words aren’t that new so I don’t think that it’s actually like improving anything majorly. [Even if] occasionally there is a new word, for the most part, nothing is really different.”

Overall, many people have differing views on membean. Some like it, while others don’t, and some view it as helpful, while some simply think of it as a good waste of time. Either way, it’s required in 9th and 10th grade so have fun membeaning!