The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Words cast a ‘spell’ on students

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Monday, Oct 20, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Words cast a ‘spell’ on students

Staff Reporter

Children from classes VI to VIII take part in the spelling contest

135 students from 34 schools take part in the contest
Good learning opportunity for students: teachers

— PHOTO: P. V. SIVAKUMAR

TESTING TIME: Participants at the spelling contest on Sunday.

Hyderabad: It was literally a war of words at ‘The Spell’, a contest where 135 students from 34 schools were pitted against each other in getting their spellings correct.

The participants, students of classes VI to VIII were called one by one to the dais where a random word was given to each of them by a panel of judges.

‘Gruesome’, said a judge to a nervous student. While he rolled his eyes and scribbled on a piece of paper before pronouncing it, others in the audience started feverish discussions about the spelling. After two minutes of biting the pencil and looking at the ceiling, ‘G-R-U-S-U-M’, he said, only to be told that he was wrong.

One after the other, they spelt words such as ‘Malign’, ‘Senile’, and ‘Sapphire’, which were phonetically confusing for most of them. The auditorium at the Country Club reverberated with applause whenever a word was spelt rightly and immediately turned quiet as the next student was about to be asked a spelling.

Immersed in last minute preparation, students flipped pages of the word list given to them by Phoenix Event Management Services Pvt. Ltd, organisers of the event. “I did not expect the competition to be so tough, but it is a good way to improve our language skills,” said Vandana Nahata, a student of Class VIII from Kalpa School.

“Certain words are complicated but I am confident about getting through the competition,” added Shivangi Gambhir, another student.

Teachers who accompanied students at the event said the competition had come as a good learning opportunity. “With children increasingly using cell phones, especially the SMS language, Internet and of American slang, they tend to misspell words. But this contest egged them on not only to improve their spellings but also pronunciation,” said Zehra Hussain, a teacher.

Parents were also a happy lot . “Children will get to improve their vocabulary,” said Mathew Karuvely, a parent.

Prize-winners

V. Vivek Iyer from The Future Kids School bagged the first prize; Aneesh Kallapur from Delhi Public School was declared the first runner-up and G. Akshay Samuel of St. Paul’s High School the second runner-up.

Sadhana Ponnaluri, Savendhu Samal, K. Lakshmi Lavanya and, K.V.S. Lokesh from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavans, Nakkana Mohithaa from Hyderabad Public School, Easha Sagar, Sowmya Dhanwada from The Future Kids School, Chanduri Prashanti from Delhi Public School, Khajaguda and Konain Fatima from St. George’s Girls Grammar School were selected to participate in the district-level competition.

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