Tuesday, April 21, 2009

English Language Week 2009 - Day 2

Spelling Bee Competition

It was rather stressful for me to prepare words which we are capable of pronouncing and are capable of being spelled by Form 2 kids. But I think we've underestimated some of their abilities. They are superb spellers, some of them. Words like "Ebb", "Firth" or "Gnat" are presumed by us to be confusing and impossible for the Form 2's to spell. We were wrong.

We were especially astonished by the performance of Micah See, brother of Jonah See.
The preliminary round was thought to be rather extreme. But Micah, oh did he surprise us.
10 outta 10!
Quite a number of the Form 2's had quite high scores too. Ranging from 7 to 9.
Heck, I'd even say they're smarter than us seniors. By a lot.

So we picked the top 21 scorers. The extra one was a tie between two students. Had no choice.
We arranged the chairs for them as though they're about to take an exam.

Look at them... See how tortured they looked?
So the semi-finals began. Word after word, they participants grow anxious. 'Cause the words just keep getting better and better. And by better, I mean harder. But heck...

And so they were again short-listed. The last FIVE participants. The finalists.

The "survivors"

The battle then began. Choosing from a list of 35 heart-stopping words at random, they start to spell. Thinking wisely and making as minimal an error as possible. You should've seen their faces when they got it wrong. The face of disappointment. I like that. It shows that they actually want to win. They don't take this event as a sit-and-watch. They give their full support. Truly respectable, unlike some... Poor Micah, getting all the hard words while the others got rather simpler ones. Must be hard for him.

At the end, we had 4 of them having the same score. So we thought of the simplest way to resolve this matter. Give a word. Fastest to respond and spell, wins.

And so, we have our winners:
1. Ong Choon Siong
2. Kenneth Low
3. Micah See

Great job, guys. You were really great spellers.

Spot The Spot Contest

Initially, the name for this event was "Treasure Hunt". But then we thought, they're not exactly treasures, first of all, they don't worth much, and they're immobile.
The participants for this event are Form 3 guys. They'll be given a riddled clue which relates to a certain spot in the school's compound.
Here are some of them:

When arriving school, look no further.
Managed by La Salle Brothers

I'm another word for a donkey,
born with an M in front of me.
(My bad for covering the M)

Like a rack, made of wood.
Stored with zinc, and more wood.

We thought that some of the riddles (not mentioned here) are too hard for them to understand let alone figuring them out. But to our surprise, the first team that finished all the riddles are only at less than 15 minutes. I was just getting some nice shots of them running around, when they came to me and said that they're done. Damn...

So the winners for this event is Team 1 consisting of Benedict Shii and uhh... His friends. =D

English Language Week 2009 - Day 1

Story Telling Competition

It's interesting how Form 1 kids tell stories. Some look so cute, especially John Ng, Joshua Ng's little brother. He's just adorable. When he recited the poem -Life's Brief Candle- on stage, the whole crowd was practically giggling at how cute he was. He's tiny, no offense intended, so the podium was basically covering his body up to his forehead. The mic was tall, so he had to tip-toe to reach it and recite. He's a pretty good story teller too. May have forgotten a few parts of the story, but hey! Nobody's perfect.

I had an issue with 3 of the Form 1 kids, I think. They told the same story -King Midas and His Golden Touch- but with individual variations. The first time we heard it, we thought it was terrific. Then comes the second teller, telling the same story. After a poem recital, the third one comes. And with the SAME story!!! The timings are 5 minutes, 3 minutes and 1 minutes respectively for each story tellers' variation. Good, bad, worst.

Clarification to the event's name. STORY TELLING COMPETITION.
Guys, if any of you are going for it, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RECITE A POEM!
Learn to differentiate, people!

But overall, I'm quite impressed by their performance. For Form 1's, some of them are really talented. If properly developed, they'd even become future philosophers!

First Post

This is basically the first blog post I've ever posted in a blog posting site like this. Post.
Interestingly, I had no motivation for posting blogs. Never knew what to write about.
Sometimes, I would think of blogging as a way of seeking attention.
I'm not really the type though... It's taboo for me to seek attention.
So you'd probably think, "Why blog anyway if you hate being noticed so much?"
Well, I guess I don't know. I just had a feeling.
I'll try to keep the blog updated. It's not everyday I get to touch the computer.
So, cheerio!