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Jakarta Post

Kids match wits in spelling bee

The air was tense in the auditorium as elementary school students competed in the 6th National Spelling Bee at the Dhanapala building in Central Jakarta on Sunday

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Tue, October 21, 2008

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Kids match wits in spelling bee

The air was tense in the auditorium as elementary school students competed in the 6th National Spelling Bee at the Dhanapala building in Central Jakarta on Sunday.

"Please spell 'geography'," the presenter said to the four semifinalists on stage.

West Jakarta resident Fathan Amartya, 8, semifinalist number 2, hit the buzzer hastily and called out "G-E-O-G-H-R-A-P-H-Y!"

"Incorrect," the jury ruled. The contestant beside him gave the right answer and pressure mounted as more questions were churned out. Fathan was out of the competition -- disappointed but not dejected.

His proud father, Rizal Mustary, told The Jakarta Post how much Fathan had been looking forward to the day.

"He missed the competition last year and had been waiting since then," he said.

"My wife and I help him practice whenever we can, such as on the way to school or on the phone during my break," Rizal added.

Together with Fathan were some 300 children from across Indonesia, who ranked in the top three of 33 regional competitions.

"At the regional level 7,230 participants competed in three categories: primary school grades 1-3, primary school grades 4-6 and secondary school," said Mimi Kaida, the general manager of the English First language school, which organizes the event.

"The competition, however, is open to the public and two-thirds of the participants are not our students. The number of participants increases every year," she added.

Many competitors are from outside Java. Dirk Daniel, 13, for example, traveled all the way from a small town near Samarinda, East Kalimantan for the competition. He prepared extensively for the day and is up against those who's school use English.

"My school does not use English so I practice it on my own," he said.

"I need extensive vocabulary for this competition. I read a lot and watch English language films. I want to talk with native speakers to get used to the accent, but it is hard to meet any in the small town where I live. So I use Encarta (a multimedia encyclopedia) because it has a function where it reads out the words."

Dirk did not come the furthest, though. Paramitha Mustika Dewi, 13, flew all the way from Jayapura, West Papua, to join the contest.

Her father, Modalky, accompanied her and said it was not an easy decision, as participants have to bear their own travel costs.

"She had won the regional competition twice before. But we did not come because it was too expensive. This year is the last year she is eligible to compete and she won again. I think this time we had to let her try her luck here," he said.

The price of the two return tickets was around Rp 10 million, not to mention the additional costs of accommodation and meals.

Although she did not win, Modalky was satisfied with her achievement.

"Getting into the semifinal is good enough. It is good for her to see that there are many people better than her. The experience is worth more than the money," he said.

At the end of the day, the new champions were crowned. The elementary school grade 1-3 category was won by Nicholas Dharmadi from Jakarta, Natasha Kristina from Cirebon and David Arya S from Bandung. Stefan Panggabean and Joshua Yustira from Jakarta, and Marvin Christian from Surabaya took honors in the elementary school 4-6 category. Cornelia Pradita from Semarang, Asanitha Fahda from Bandung and Marcel Ardivan from Jakarta were the secondary school category winners. (mri)

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