Buri Ram student aces 2018 NJ Spelling Bee

By The Nation

 

Temchon Punthasane from Buriram Pitthayakhom School, centre, wins the 2018 NJ Spelling Bee. He has been showered with many awards, including a scholarship to study the English language in the United States.

 

TEMCHON PUNTHASANE from Buriram Pitthayakhom School was the quickest – and best – speller in the 2018 Nation Junior Spelling Bee, the best-known English spelling competition in Thailand.
 

After running four regional contests in four provinces – Chiang Mai, Songkhla, Khon Kaen and Pathum Thani – in the second half of this year, 100 winners from these regions joined the grand national round held on Saturday at Rangsit University in Pathum Thani province.

 

The contestants not only prepared themselves with spellings that they expected to meet in this round, but they also kept their fingers crossed, as luck also played an important role. 

 

The competition was tight in every round, until Temchon’s name was called out as the national winner.

 

He will receive his trophy from Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, and will also get a scholarship to study the English language in the US, which is funded by Education USA and the US Embassy in Bangkok. 

 

 

Temchon also takes home a Bt15,000 cash prize from Magnolia Plus Ginkgo, as well as a TOEFL Total course from Enconcept. His adviser, meanwhile, will get a Bt20,000 cash prize from NJ Digital. 

 

The runners up will each get a trophy, a Bt10,000 scholarship and an Ultimate Vocab Plus Reading course. Five merit awards were also presented, each with a Bt5,000 scholarship and a pre-admission GAT and O-NET course.

 

For his part, Temchon attributed his success to the love of reading. 

 

“Since I was young, I have loved reading English articles, novels and anything else I can find on the Internet. When I find words I don’t know the meaning of, I look them up in the dictionary.”

 

He also realised the importance of vocabulary.

 

“If we understand vocabulary, we can understand the entire sentence. For me, I think vocabulary is more important than grammar, because we don’t need perfect grammar in conversation.” 

 

Katriya Burkdoll, an English-language teacher’s assistant at Fullbright Thailand who represented the US Embassy, said spelling bees in the US were more like game shows, unlike the NJ competition.

 

“I think that overall, for all the students who came and competed today, it’s quite a big achievement,” she said. “They should all be very proud of themselves.”

 

She also urged young Thais to work on polishing their English-language skills. 

 

“Whether the object is to study abroad or just boost your communication skills, I think it [English language] provides a lot of opportunities for students to communicate with the world.”

 

 

The NJ Spelling Bee project began when the Nation Group, in collaboration with NJ Digital, saw the importance of young people knowing the English language, and encouraged them to learn more vocabulary. 

 

The competition has over the past 21 years become more and more popular. This year’s event was sponsored by F&N Magnolia Plus Ginkgo and the US Embassy in cooperation with educational institutions, government agencies among others. 

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30359720

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-12-03

 

Good for him! Nice news, for a change.

Well done !

Way to go! Best of luck in the future. Keep up the good work, remember never  give up!

Gotta agree with the winner, vocabulary is more important than grammar, pronunciation is vital too.

This is a great venue to recognize those with outstanding English skills. And a scholarship to study abroad is a fantastic reward for the winner. Also wonderful to see someone from Isaan able to win the top prize. Really well done and impressive.

 

Study English in the USA... good luck with the accent & spelling differences from pure English !!

 

“Since I was young, I have loved reading English articles, novels and anything else I can find on the Internet. When I find words I don’t know the meaning of, I look them up in the dictionary.”

 

A shining example of how to use modern technology to enhance the age-old process of learning. Good on the lad. Hope he gets to the States and makes his family and nation proud of him.

Nice to see all of these positive posts.  See, sometimes we give credit where credit is due.  I guess nobody else thought that NJ was New Jersey?

Yes, I too thought initially that NJ referred to New Jersey. This bright, hard-working young man has a bright future.  The world will be his oyster.

 

Nice to see all of these positive posts.  See, sometimes we give credit where credit is due.  I guess nobody else thought that NJ was New Jersey?

Here's a negative; how are the words delivered to the contestants?  They obviously don't come in written form so someone reads them out aloud.  Having heard mispronunciations by many Thai broadcasters, how do you spell 'footborn'?

It's a good question. The north region of this NJ spelling bee is on youtube. One announcer had a thick thai accent but the English words seemed pronounced correctly. Another judge sounded completely like an English first language speaker and I could not sense any Thai at all. Interesting some of the test was not only spelling a word, but knowledge. They would show a picture of something and ask for the word complete with correct spelling. Here is an excerpt.

 

 

 

7 hours ago, mikebell said:

Here's a negative; how are the words delivered to the contestants?  They obviously don't come in written form so someone reads them out aloud.  Having heard mispronunciations by many Thai broadcasters, how do you spell 'footborn'?

I had to make some assumptions ????

Congratulations to Temchon and to all the other competitors. It takes some courage to even enter such a competition.

Good news for once. Leaves a warm feeling.

 

Now if we could just multiply that by 1 million students and Thailand would be on the up'n up.