The Bulgarian National English Spelling Bee was developed and started in 2011 by two Peace Corps volunteers. They worked in collaboration with more than 50 other Peace Corps volunteers serving in communities, big and small, where more than 1000 students participated. Expanding on this success, in its second and third year, the spelling bee grew beyond Peace Corps supported communities and was open to all public schools in Bulgaria. More than 6500 students from 273 schools participated in 2015 Spelling Bee.
Similar to spelling bees in the US, the competitors must spell words out loud letter by letter and are eliminated for misspelling a word. Students up to 14, working with a predetermined list of words, prepare for their local, school competitions.
The 1st and 2nd place winners from each school bee participate in regional competitions and the top 3 students from each regional bee advance to compete for the title of the Bulgarian National English Spelling Bee champion. At each level, additional study words are added. Each year a new study list is created with a broad range of difficulty, allowing students of all levels participate and achieve a sense of accomplishment with each new word they learned.
In addition the CORPluS team organize teacher trainings for the English teachers and provide additional resources to extend and enhance competition preparation.
The Spelling Bee is organized in partnership with America for Bulgaria Foundation, the US Embassy in Sofia and Ministry of Education and Science. For more info visit www.spellingbee-bg.com.
