On Thursday January 26, a spelling bee contest and the excitement that came with it buzzed the whole school. Jubilation and happiness filled the air. All 15 contestants from grade 7 classes held the paper , during the advisory session, containing the hard vocabulary words to review them again and again. The auditorium was finally crowded with SMOC’s learners like ants. One main objective bonded all 15 semi- finalists and that is the dream to win the contest. The spelling bee started and the anxiety was added when we saw that Mrs Issa, the school’s associate principal, and Mrs Nadine, Intermediate H.O.D, attended to watch this unique event. The announcers were our avid English teachers Miss Samar Hasbiny and Mrs. Aline Yaacoub.
The silence of the crowd kept the contestants focused but nervous. Faces got red and hands got sweaty. We started with Grade 7A with our 5 contestants: Ghida Hajj Sleiman, Laura Mahmoud, Nathalie Farroukh, Hassan Farroukh, and Maher Jurdi. The crowd and our accompaniers were puzzled by such hard words. They all strived to get the title, but 7A’s winner was Nathalie Farroukh encouraged by Miss Samar’s shout: “Good Job”! The second class was 7B with Nour Fahmi, Mohamad Ismail, Lama Mahmoud, Zeina Antoun, and Ali Halawi. Three contestants lost but we were down with Nour and Mohamad. Nour was so nervous that she messed up and so 7B’s winner was Mohamad Ismail. Suddenly, the crowd went crazy clapping and shouting with joy. Now, for our last class 7C with Yara Ammash, Jad Masri, Omar Dajani, Yara Hassanieh, and Marwa Takkoush. Marwa, Omar, and Yara Hassanieh lost, but we still had Yara Ammash and Jad competing. Unfortunately, Yara lost and the crowd cheered for Jad Masri- the winner of 7C.
The 3 remaining finalists were asked to step on the stage and the whole audience could feel that they had stage fright! Jad lost from the third word “Bicentennial”, but the feud was still on between Mohamad and Nathalie. In a lost moment, Nathalie misspelled the word and in order for Mohamad to win he had to spell it correctly. Mohamad gazed to the audience, stood in confidence, and spelled the word correctly. No one believed because we were all surprised. Our silence was woken by Miss Samar’s jubilant shout: “EXCELLENT!!!” The crowd jumped up and down , shouted, screamed in ecstasy, and congratulated the winner “Mohamad Ismail”.
This experience wasn’t about winning or losing but it was useful for all of us even the teachers. We learned that life isn’t all about winning and that you may face obstacles, throughout this experience, we learned new vocabulary words and had lots of fun. It’s not bad for a person to learn new things because hand by hand we can explore the unexplored!!
Nour Fahmi
Grade 7B
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