Bulgarian National English Spelling Bee

The implementation phase of the 16^th Bulgarian National Spelling Bee and Spelling Bee Junior competitions started at the beginning of October, after an active preparation work during August and September. The CORPluS Foundation staff organized promotional activities through social media and organizational partners to attract new participants and this year we attracted a record number of participants.

The registration campaign started on October 1st and by October 20th 251 schools registered for the “big Bee”, as well as 206 for Spelling Bee Junior.  7011 students registered to take part in the competition – 3480 in SB and 3523 in SBJ. All participants paid 20 BGN participation fee.   

The preparation period for all SB participants started with a pre-test, which was designed as both paper-based and computer-based. The study word list with 500 words was sent to them in early November. SB Junior participants also got their 250 study words at that time. The CORPluS staff designed and developed online resources to help the teachers in the preparation phase and to make studying new words more enjoyable and fun. We also put efforts to develop our community of Spelling Bee teachers by posting one activity every week which can be used in the English language classroom. 

During the first 2 months of the preparation period (November-December) CORPluS staff communicated with the teacher-coordinators to answer questions, provide additional resources on developing spelling and other skills and motivating students. The “Spelling Bee Teacher Group” on Facebook was used very actively and the teachers were able to exchange ideas and good practices not only for preparing for the school rounds of the competition but for teaching interactively and efficiently. An online meeting with the new teacher coordinators will be held a week before the school round and they will be given guidance on organizing the school competitions.