The annual Sanlam Words Open Worlds (WOW) Spelling Festival, the largest spelling competition in the country, was recently televised for the first time.
The spelling festival took place over three episodes, which aired on the Toyota Stellenbosch University (SU) Woordfees TV channel on DStv, according to Shireen Crotz, the project coordinator for the spelling festival. The episodes aired on 5, 6 and 7 October, she said in email correspondence with MatieMedia.
The value of the televised spelling festival “would be that it is a way to showcase the good work of teachers, as well as the potential of learners, irrespective of their socioeconomic background or the socioeconomic status of the school”, said Fiona van Kerwel, the project manager for the festival.
WOW is “an empowerment project overseen by the Toyota SU Woordfees”, according to the Woordfees website.
The Afrikaans and English spelling lists for the Sanlam Words Open Worlds (WOW) Spelling Festival were curated by Fiona van Kerwel, the festival project manager, Dinise Priga-Ritter, the foundation phase curriculum advisor for the Western Cape education department, and Shireen Crotz, the festival coordinator. The isiXhosa spelling list was curated by Agnes Ntaba, the isiXhosa curriculum advisor for the Western Cape education department. PHOTO: Tina Ddamulira
Provincial participants
All of the participants in the televised WOW Spelling Festival initially qualified and competed in the 2019 competition. As there were no qualifying rounds for the competition in 2020 or 2021, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, these participants were selected to compete again in this year’s competition, in their current age groups.
This is according to Dinise Priga-Ritter, a foundation phase curriculum advisor for the Western Cape education department, who assisted in organising the spelling festival. This selection process was used because “[2019] was the last year we had all the grades participate [in qualifying rounds] in person”, said Crotz.
The spelling festival is usually a national competition, but due to inter-provincial travel restrictions in June and July – when planning for the spelling festival had begun – all the participants in the 2021 competition were from the Western Cape, said Crotz.
Episodes
The first episode of the spelling festival, which aired on 5 October, was titled Grade four: Me and my teacher, according to a post on the WOW Facebook page.
The episode consisted of three rounds, in which the learners worked on their own for the first round, and then worked with their teachers for the second and third rounds, according to Crotz.
Fiona van Kerwel, the Sanlam Words Open Worlds Spelling Festival project manager, explains how the different rounds in the first episode of the televised spelling festival were run. AUDIO: Tina Ddamulira
In the third round of the first episode of the televised Sanlam Words Open Worlds (WOW) Spelling Festival, the grade four participants were required to identify words when given the letters in the incorrect order. Fiona van Kerwel, the spelling festival project manager, gives an example of how the third round of the first episode was run. AUDIO: Tina Ddamulira
One of the episodes was multilingual, with participants competing in teams. “One learner is Afrikaans home language and the other learner is isiXhosa home language,” explained Van Kerwel.
“But if it is [an English word], they must work together and decide who is fastest to spell the word correctly,” said Van Kerwel.