Saturday, April 16, 2011

Regional Spelling Bee

Today marked the second level of the Bulgarian National English Spelling Bee. It was regionals and my school was the host for our area of the country. There were 15 spellers from cities near Sliven who came to compete. The Bee went very well with only minor complications. In two incidences, questions were raised about whether or not the speller was correct. Another time a judge read one of the words wrong however this was immediately corrected and lightened the competition up a bit, prosperous versus preposterous. Otherwise, most of the kids seemed happy to be there and all of them got certificates and MP3 players for making it to this round (pretty awesome prizes in my opinion). The top three students moving forward to nationals are from Sliven! They are not my students but they are from the 3rd school here in Sliven. Congrats to the winners and I wish them the best of luck in Sofia at the national level of the competition.



On a side note, an extremely nice and polite boy began talking to me when I went to the train station today with the volunteer who came to town yesterday in order to judge the Spelling Bee. The other volunteer bought their ticket and the boy ended up walking with me to the supermarket. I let him pick out a piece of fruit and an ice cream treat which made him extremely happy and my walk much more pleasurable. Now at least I know the name of one of the MANY children who hang out near my apartment building. I do not teach in my neighborhood and therefore know very few kids who live near me. Plus, he didn't speak any English except "hello", "goodbye", "yes" and "no so I had him tell me "thank you" after I gave him his treat. This is something I rarely do and definitely could not do for all the kids in my neighborhood or I'd be broke but it was a nice addition to my day. Now it's time for some relaxation before another week of school begins.

Peace, love, literacy, and reckless curiosity.

No comments:

Post a Comment