S-P-E-L-L

With huge thanks to my coworkers Beth D. and Marlene R., I've had something very productive going on in site ever since after the 15 day holiday in July. They had the grand idea to try to put together a spelling bee (in English of course-as we're TEFL volunteers) in various schools across the country. They found some information from Peace Corps volunteers that had done them in other countries and put together guidelines, word lists, and sent out information to volunteers. I was able to get the sixth and fifth grade teachers to let me come into their classrooms a few times a week for a month. It was tough at first, both with the kids seeing the time I came to class as the time to screw around, and with the English teacher at the elementary school having not done a great job of teaching the kids the alphabet. So, instead of starting with trying to spell words from memory, we started with trying to correctly pronounce the letters. But, I shortened the word list to seventy words, and with flashcards and persistence was able to make some progress. 

(me with all the students and the English teacher)

At the high school, I worked with the English teacher to identify some of the better students in English or those with lots of interest and formed a group of eleven or twelve students. We met twice a week for a month as well. The group wasn't always constant, as sometimes the students couldn't get permission to leave class, and shockingly, shockingly indeed some of the students said they were going to spelling practice but would skip out and head to town or to the woods. But, a committed group of students did a great job learning the words and had a positive attitude each week as I brought more and more words for them to learn. 

(a student grabs scratch paper to write his word before spelling it)

So, towards the end of August I arranged a spelling bee at the elementary school and the high school. The elementary school bee was a bit rough, for two reasons. The first was that I didn't have a whole lot of support from the principal or English teacher, the sixth grade teacher was helpful, but got called to meet with the principal just before I was ready to begin. So, I was both managing the behavior of thirty five or so sixth and fifth graders that decided to participate in the spelling bee and trying to run the spelling bee. It went okay, but due to so many students having such a poor background in English that my few sessions just couldn't overcome, a lot of students went out in the first or second round. I was down to the five or six students that I thought I would be down to (minus one unfortunate first round exit) by the third round. By the fourth I had just three students (which worked out great-because that's how many I would be taking to regionals) and by the sixth round one student had won. 

(handing the certificate and prize to the 1st place winner)

The high school bee went much better, both because I was just working with a small group, and because the teacher at the high school was more helpful in planning it with me. So, we had some treats for the kids and parents (two moms showed up!), the counselor and teacher were there watching, as well as José, one of my bosses-who was passing by that afternoon-so I contacted him and he worked his schedule around coming. The audience gave it a good atmosphere as well as the fact that two students had studied quite well, and although after five rounds only the two of them remained, they went until the 11th round until one of them committed an error.

Soon, I'll post about how my elementary school winners did at the regional bee!