Our Spelling-Bee Champion
I interviewed a young man yesterday, having discovered that he was the overall winner for the Year 6 to 9 category of the Vietnam National Spelling Bee Competition. Having achieved success in previous spelling competitions, he decided to ‘Be Ambitious’ and try his skills at national level. He was competing on stage against a group of around forty other contestants, in front of an audience of more than one hundred people. In preparation for the competition, he told me that he had spent many hours practicing to accurately spell the 200 English words that would be tested during the competition. Even on the morning of the event, he was still revising them.
I asked him how he felt while competing.
“Nervous and anxious,” he told me.
“It was very intense. But then when I was in the final group of five, I became very excited and when I won, I felt so happy, I was screaming with pride inside. On the outside though, I remained very calm.”
He is now the proud owner of a winner’s cup, a trophy to display alongside several bronze medals that he has collected as prizes from previous competitions.
I asked him what his future intentions were.
“To enter more spelling competitions and to know the English language as if it were my ‘mother tongue’.”
Well, he is certainly on the right pathway to achieve his goals. We are so proud of him.
