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May 3, 2010
Spelling bee contestants' woes
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I REFER to the ongoing national spelling bee contest and its semi-finals held last Saturday. This is a competition organised by the Gifted Education Branch of the Ministry of Education. While we appreciate the efforts of the organisers, there were some serious issues with the event:
- The sound system was appalling. It was obvious that on many occasions, contestants could not hear the pronunciation of words properly, misspelt them and were eliminated for that reason.
� Granted, contestants were given the word in context as well, but if you cannot hear the word pronounced correctly, you cannot correctly guess the spelling of the word (especially a difficult one).
An example: Some members of the audience heard the word 'hen-gential', while some heard 'en-gential', and a nine-year-old contestant obviously heard 'en-gential' and spelt it accordingly, but the word turned out to be 'tangential'. Another example:� The audience heard a contestant spell 'aesthetic' with a 'k' ('kesthetic') and were stunned when the judges ruled it correct.
- There seemed to be a lack of preparation by the pronouncer, a local TV producer, who mispronounced several words (for example, 'gestalt' was pronounced as 'ger-sh-tolt'; 'vogue' was pronounced as 'vi-oh-g'; 'detente' as 'day-taun'; and 'plateau' as 'pla-too'). This again hampered the chances of contestants spelling the words correctly.
Wouldn't someone who is linguistically trained in English or who had done advance preparation to ensure pronunciation accuracy before the event have been a better choice?
�- Unlike the well-established United States National Scripps Spelling Bee, where the correct spelling of the word is given whenever a contestant has spelt it incorrectly, this was not done here. Coupled with the poor sound system, this left the audience and contestants with no idea of how some of the words should have been spelt, or, in some cases, even what the words were.
In fairness to the contestants and if this is to be conducted as a national event, these areas should be addressed, or it will remain a sub-standard local contest that is not worthy of national participation.
The contestants, all intelligent and talented, worked hard to compete in this event, which is stressful at the best of times, but to be let down by the combination of a poor sound system and incorrect pronunciation was a major shame.
Alistair Duffield
Spelling bee contestants' woes
<!-- by line --><!-- end by line -->
<!-- end left side bar --><!-- story content : start -->
I REFER to the ongoing national spelling bee contest and its semi-finals held last Saturday. This is a competition organised by the Gifted Education Branch of the Ministry of Education. While we appreciate the efforts of the organisers, there were some serious issues with the event:
- The sound system was appalling. It was obvious that on many occasions, contestants could not hear the pronunciation of words properly, misspelt them and were eliminated for that reason.
� Granted, contestants were given the word in context as well, but if you cannot hear the word pronounced correctly, you cannot correctly guess the spelling of the word (especially a difficult one).
An example: Some members of the audience heard the word 'hen-gential', while some heard 'en-gential', and a nine-year-old contestant obviously heard 'en-gential' and spelt it accordingly, but the word turned out to be 'tangential'. Another example:� The audience heard a contestant spell 'aesthetic' with a 'k' ('kesthetic') and were stunned when the judges ruled it correct.
- There seemed to be a lack of preparation by the pronouncer, a local TV producer, who mispronounced several words (for example, 'gestalt' was pronounced as 'ger-sh-tolt'; 'vogue' was pronounced as 'vi-oh-g'; 'detente' as 'day-taun'; and 'plateau' as 'pla-too'). This again hampered the chances of contestants spelling the words correctly.
Wouldn't someone who is linguistically trained in English or who had done advance preparation to ensure pronunciation accuracy before the event have been a better choice?
�- Unlike the well-established United States National Scripps Spelling Bee, where the correct spelling of the word is given whenever a contestant has spelt it incorrectly, this was not done here. Coupled with the poor sound system, this left the audience and contestants with no idea of how some of the words should have been spelt, or, in some cases, even what the words were.
In fairness to the contestants and if this is to be conducted as a national event, these areas should be addressed, or it will remain a sub-standard local contest that is not worthy of national participation.
The contestants, all intelligent and talented, worked hard to compete in this event, which is stressful at the best of times, but to be let down by the combination of a poor sound system and incorrect pronunciation was a major shame.
Alistair Duffield
