Over 25 schools take part in Bogor spelling bee

Over 25 schools take part in Bogor spelling bee

Gerald Donovan, Contributor, Bogor

At 06:30 a.m. There were still two hours before Sekolah Bogor
Raya's inaugural interschool spelling bee, but Nadia Firdaus, 12,
was already preparing herself for the day's event.

"P-e-r-c-e-p-t-i-b-l-e" she spelt under her breath while
uncovering the word in the dictionary to check her accuracy.

Even at this early hour, the lobby of the school was a hub of
activity with contestants already starting to arrive and sponsors
and stallholders setting up in the large open air canteen area.

Banners were still being erected and display cabinets
assembled.

Giggling with excitement, a group of girls from a national
plus school in Bandung got out of their bus and came to the
registration desk. Despite being the furthest competitors away
from Bogor, they were the first arrivals; "we got up at 4:00 am
this morning," explained one. "We had breakfast in the bus."

"This is the first time we have run this competition,"
explained bee coordinator Nurlaila Rachman, as she examined the
judges' table to make sure it was ready.

"We have tried to plan for every eventuality, but you never
know what is going to happen. If there is a power cut, we are in
real trouble. Our generator is missing-in-action."

With a total of around 300 spellers competing from over 25
different schools around the country, she had good reason to
worry. Parents and teachers were taking the event very seriously
and the stakes were high.

The winners at each grade level were to receive a Rp 500,000
top prize, and the runners up a new bank account containing Rp
250,000 from Panin Bank. Some spellers' parents had been drilling
their children for months in preparation for this day.

In the first round students were given a written test of 30
words in the classrooms, while downstairs, guests enjoyed some
piano and guitar music.

Half way through the qualification round, two parties of
spellers from Jakarta showed up, very late. There had been
chronic traffic and the toll road at Cibubur had turned into a
four lane car-park.

After some negotiation, they were allowed to join in and sit
the written qualification test separately. The atmosphere in the
classrooms was tense, with participants straining to listen
carefully to every word while racking their brains for spellings.

"It's the double letter words that will help us eliminate
spellers," laughed coordinator Miavarani, and she was proved
right as many in the qualification round misspelled words such as
"affinity", "classically" and "disappear".

At the end of the first round, the written tests were marked
and the top five scorers at each level went on to the final
round. Students poured downstairs from the classrooms, some
bounding with confidence, some shaking their heads in frustration
and a few near tears. The 45 finalists -- five from each of the
nine grade levels -- were announced along with the rules of the
competition and some firm words of warning to parents.

"Please don't call out anything or mouth letters," said
Miavarani. She wanted a clean contest on behalf of both the
parents and participants.

The first-graders were the first on stage. Little Raymond
Victorio eyed the microphone suspiciously as he stepped up to
spell his first word. Clutching his hands together as the reader
Mark Havard read the word "try".

"Could you repeat the world, please?" he asked nervously.

Judges Douglas Horley of Sekolah IPEKA, Pak Wahyu of LIA and
Carl Turland of the British Institute listened carefully to each
student as the participants spelt out the words. Not only did
they have to listen for the correct spelling but for the correct
pronunciation of each letter. No Indonesian letter pronunciations
were allowed in the competition.

It was the word "scariest" that caught out Pradya Nindhita.
"Machinery" got Nadia Wahika and "Frenchman" stumped two
finalists.

The third-graders found their words a piece of cake, flying
through the final round. The last two spellers matched each other
word-for-word and had almost come to the end of the 50-word list
for grade 3, at which point the round would have been declared a
draw and the prize shared.

The organizers were exchanging worried glances with each other
when finally Zerlinda Rachel misspelled "immigrant". Adiva
Nindito stepped up and successfully corrected her mistake. He was
able to spell the next word "airplane" correctly to be crowned
the grade 3 champion.

The competition went smoothly and without any major hitches
all the way up to the ninth-graders. Many had not been able to
make it at this level because of the national examinations, but
those who did make it put in a strong effort and the final round
was won with the word "speakerphone".

The students were all winners as they trooped off stage with
prizes in hand; ready to spell the end of their day with a well
deserved "r-e-s-t." -- The writer works for Sekolah Bogor Raya