Aloha Spelling Bee Contest

Did you feel a little tingle the first time you got a perfect score on a spelling test?Let’s extrapolate –meaning -“predict by projecting past experience or known data” and imagine that that perfect score had earned you a big cash prize, a guest spot on a T V show and your picture in major newspaper in the country. Now we’re talking more than a tingle. Most Aloha Spelling Bee champions would call it a pretty big buzz!

What is a spelling bee?

A little history…..Spelling Bees first originated in the United States.

In America Spelling Bees are actually considered a tradition. Spelling contests, often called “spelling matches” or “spelldowns,” were a form of community entertainment throughout the nineteenth century, reaching a peak of popularity in the 1870s. In fact, there was quite a spelling craze during that decade, not unlike that of today. Education was still at a premium, and people with a facility for language were much admired, rather like television stars and hip-hop musicians are today. In the cities, particularly in the eastern United States, spelling matches were very serious business, often requiring entry fees. It wasn’t until about 1875 that the term spelling bee came into common usage. The first known recorded usage of the word bee, meaning “a community activity,” dates from 1769. It was usually used for manual activities such as spinning, quilting, barn raising, corn husking, and other necessary tasks of rural life that were often shared among neighbors for social, as well as practical, reasons in far-flung frontier communities. Many people assume the word originally referred to the insect—after all, the bee is among the most social and industrious of creatures.

What Makes an Aloha Spelling Bee?

Not all spelling bees are alike; the difficulty of the words, the size of the audience, the rules, and the prizes vary widely. But all spelling bees have a few essential elements: contestants, a word list, and a pronouncer who gives the words aloud. Most spelling bees also have judges who oversee the bee to make sure it is fair to all spellers. A Spelling bee may be open only for schools or it might be open to all As a speller moves ahead, spelling competition gets more serious. Basically spelling bees are designed to help children improve their spelling and increase their knowledge. Eligibility is determined by the child's age and grade on the day of the event.

The Aloha Spelling bee is a combination of both written and oral rounds and hence has been divided in two major segments, in the first of which all contestants were required to spell forty written words, given in two rounds of 20 words each. The scores achieved in this part of the Bee are used to qualify for the oral rounds in which the top 25 – 30 registrants qualify. The oral rounds will consist of each contestant, being given a word to spell orally. The contestants will be given words from the provided word lists for the initial 2 rounds. Each contestant will remain active in the oral rounds until such time as s/he incorrectly spells a word. However for the first two rounds the elimination will take place only after the two rounds are done. A contestant will be eliminated only if s/he misspells in both the rounds. The elimination for every miss pelt word would begin only from round three. And the process of elimination continues with increasingly difficult words being asked and until only one-contestant remains.

The Aloha spelling bee in Chennai.

Aloha India had organized the Aloha spelling bee in Chennai on 12th Nov’06 at the Monfort Stadium. Due to the large number of participants registered for the contest, it was decided to conduct only the Written rounds for the Spelling Bee on that day. The hall was packed the whole day with students writing spellings as they were pronounced. There were about 2000 students participating in the event. The names of the selected contestants from the written rounds were announced by the evening. The oral rounds are going to be held on………at …….