ESL Spelling Bee!

The day had come that for all the 6th, 7th, 8th grade ESL students to show their skills in the annual ESL Spelling Bee competition! In this event, the students spell challenging words given randomly by the judges, and upon one wrong spelling, a contestant is eliminated from the game. It may seem to be just spelling, but the contestants have to face extra pressure in front of their peers and teachers.

As the clock ticked to 4:00, a large audience of middle and high school students and staff gathered excitedly to watch, while on the stage, the ten spellers sat nervously. Head of ESL Department, Mr. Endo introduced the judges: Mr. Powles, the head of the English department, Ms. Jen Gross, middle school English teacher, and the "special guest" judge, last year's spelling be champion, Liang-Yun Cheng, 9th grader. Mr. Endo demonstrated the rules, explaining how the game was going to be played and the consequences when they spelled the word wrong. Then the contest began!

Loads of brain cells were surely sacrificed to spell some long, tricky words, and after three rounds of excellent spelling, three were eliminated, leaving seven left on the stage. Aya, the bright star of the day, spelled every single word correctly and calmly. When she was asked to spell the word "Archeologist", everyone gasped, thinking that this is the end, she wouldn't make it. However, Aya repeated the word aloud and calmly spelled the word A-R-C-H-E-O-L-O-G-I-S-T, and the audience admired her even more, giving her huge applause. (Editor's note: the students were allowed to use US or UK spelling, much to the annoyance of Mr. Powles, a purist for English English!).

After an hour, all the contestants were eliminated but two 7th grade contestants: Ae Lin Kim and Aya Wakita. "We're running out of words here!" said Mr.Endo. Finally, after several more rounds, the turning point came when Aya pounced on a missed opportunity by Ae Lin to spell the words 'parentheses' and 'isosceles' correctly and win!

It was such a fierce competition! In the end, first place went to Aya, second place to Ae Lin and third place to 8th grader, Saw Yan Naing. The other spellers did a fine job, and they also were cheered and congratulated by everyone. They might be young, but watch out, they can spell!

by Andrew Cashion and Nutchakrit Puangseree, Grade 9