To Bee or Not to Bee? The Importance of Spelling When Teaching English

Jessica Rapp | Jun 3, 2013 11:00 am | 1 comment | 1510 reads

"Hyeometer" stumped 11-year-old Katharine Wang when she was asked to provide its spelling during the 86th Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington DC on Thursday. The Fangcaodi International School sixth grader from Beijing managed five rounds, tackling words like “roodebok” (an African antelope more commonly known as the impala) and “quebracho” (a species of tropical tree) before stumbling on the technical word for a rain gauge.

Wang may not have won the bee (that honor – and the USD 30,000 in championship dough – eventually went to Arving Mahankali of Bayside Hills, New York, who was called the LeBron James of spelling bees), but she survived nearly a third of the 18 rounds. Wang certainly has more guts than the adults who were too chicken to participate in The Bookworm's bee during their literary festival. After several failed attempts at throwing together a tournament, they finally gave up this year.

You'd think there would be an English teacher or two out there in Beijing who could work up the courage to participate in a bee. Spelling is a good life skill and is a key part of literacy, as it is the mechanism that encompasses all parts of a word – the entymology, the morphology, and ultimately, its meaning.

Remember that movie Spellbound? That was once pretty close to home for me. About 12 years ago, I competed against a sibling of a national spelling bee winner featured in that documentary after I spent months inside my bedroom glued to my Scripps spelling list, learning words from stories like A Wrinkle in Time and Watership Down. I practiced until I knew hundreds of words on the list, like "verisimilitude" and "connoisseur" and "paraphernalia." In the final round of the 2001 state match, I finally tripped up on the word "tumultuous" and decided I should have a social life, avoided bees, and focused on the syntactical and grammatical side of linguistics.

So I confess, if you asked me to spell these days, I would probably clam up too. Admittedly, I had to look up how to spell "connoisseur" while writing this (thank you internet). I'm definitely no LeBron James when it comes to spelling.

English teachers, do you think it's important to teach spelling? What word can you never spell?

Photo: Huffingtong Post

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Re: To Bee or Not to Bee? The Importance of Spelling When ...
Posted Jun 3, 2013 1:35pm by britomart

ABSOLUTELY; teaching spelling is VERY important. I taught English in China for several years, about 13 years ago, and then returned to my original profession of English editing and curriculum development. I have been working for a Chinese publishing company as an editor and textbook author for ten years now.

It has been interesting to see the attitude of my Chinese students from years ago and now the attitude of my Chinese colleagues to the importance of spelling and other basic errors. "Yes, it is very important to spell/punctuate correctly"--but in practice, 差不多就好了, i.e. "Close enough is good enough". I can't count the number of times that I've tried to explain to colleagues that spelling, punctuation and grammar are such a basic part of language that simple mistakes in those areas will pretty much destroy any impression that they have "good English" or whatever other language they're trying to claim to be fluent in.

It's one thing to be making basic mistakes while learning English; that's just part of the language-learning process. However, when you're in the professional world and using English as a tool, then errors in spelling, the most basic aspect of a language, can, well, make you look very, very bad. In the professional world of business or of academia, basic spelling errors can give the impression that the writer is not very professional in his actual area of expertise, since he can't manage even a simple matter like avoiding spelling mistakes.

Doubt wisely; in strange way / To stand inquiring right is not to stray; / To sleep, or run wrong, is. (Donne, Satire III)