ROTARACT CLUB OF ANTIGUA

Amidst the adverse and unfavourable weather conditions, supporters turned out in their numbers last Saturday to cheer and chant for the ten young spellers in the 2012 Seven Seas-Rotaract Spelling Bee Semi-finals, that began on October 6 with a preliminary round. 

 

Almost 80 followers came in honour of St. John’s Catholic’s Tehillah Jackson, another 50 for Five Island’s Norissa Ryan and scores of others for the remaining participating schools.

 

‘Bazaar’ and ‘hooligan’ were among words the 9- to 11-year-old super spellers faced when they stepped to the microphone on the stage at the Precision Centre.

 

The students generally breezed through word categories like Words Commonly Mis-spelt, World History and Diseases & Illnesses, comfortably tackling words like 'typhoid' and 'shingles'.

 

While viewers and contestants of this year's Spelling Bee semi-final fixated on the fine points of spelling the words correctly, many of the spellers lowered their sights a little bit and found themselves focusing heavily on the words they didn’t spell correctly -- almost always ended up misspelling easy words that followed.

 

Another mistake that so many spellers made in this year’s competition came when they rushed into spelling words they clearly knew, and ended up mis-spelling them.

 

Just as the youngsters competed, 10 grown-ups including teachers from respective schools and parents vied for the adult speller prize of a phone from LIME.

 

This displayed the lighter side of the competition as the adults placed themselves into the children’s 'shoes' and showed how good they are at spelling too.

 

Some of the words the adults faced included 'karyokinesis' and 'bourgeois'.

 

A fifth grade teacher at St. John’s Catholic Primary walked away with the coveted adult speller prize.

 

Saturday's preliminary round is now out of the way and the top five advancing spellers are on their way to the final round of battle set for next weekend, October 20.

 

The five (5) talented kids who will be competing for the three top spots in the final and to become the spelling bee champion this year are:

 

1.    St. John’s Catholic Primary – Tehillah Jackson

2.    Five Islands Primary – Norissa Ryan

3.    St. Michael Primary – Danelle Doorgen

4.    Greenbay Primary – Sheheema Carbon

5.    T. N. Kirnon Primary – Kareel Simon

 

The finals will be aired live on ABS TV from the Precision Centre starting at 10:00 am.