First Round
As the sun shone its warmth in Saturday morning, I was getting ready to meet some unpredictable situations. Saturday, October 11, 2014, my students joined Mini Bee Competition held by one of an English course in Surabaya. I was informed that the competition is held anually, the prelimenary round, however, was in Grand City Mall.
First, I prepared myself with some tasty breakfast in my favorite place to eat near Grand City mall. One of my teacher friend, Miss Eirenne, was going to accompany me during that day. I was having my moment when her smile had been caught in my eyes right after my first spoon. We then hadsmall talk about our students who decided to join Mini Bee competition.
More than one hundred students from different schools joined Mini Bee Competition. There were two stages. In the first stage, all participants were asked to type the correct words as they heard the words through the ear phones. All participants who succeeded in the first stage would have to spell certain words from the jury orally in the second stage. The entire rules and regulation of both first and second stages have been imprinted in my brain and have been floored to my students. By knowing well and having maximum preparation, I believe we can pick the best fruit.
Miss Eirenne and I arrived at the location of the Mini Bee competition an hour early from the schedule. It was 9 o’clock in the morning when all elevators were still inactive. We walked to the 4th floor and surprisingly, we were not alone. Some of the comittee members were busy preparing things. In the corner I saw a group of students sat down around the table facing some papers, looking so serious. Miss Eirenne chose the table in the middle so we could see our students came. I was curious with that group of students who were being so serious with their papers. I decided to take a little peep to their papers. They were studying list of words from the internet, from the same resouces I have visited to find learning materials for my students.
Pict. 1 : Steffi Grade 4, Grace Grade 2 and Jessica Grade 4 after the preliminary round.
There were 16 students from my school who joined mini bee competition: four Grade 2 students, Angelina, Angelita, Charlenne and Grace; four grade 3 students, Bianca, Gio, Michael Morino, and Farrel; three grade 4 students, Jeanette, Jessica, and Steffi; six grade 6 students, Caroll, David, Jeslyn, Steven, Nicholas and Michael Lee. I was happy to help them to do some practices before they faced the first round.
As the first round was about to start in 5 minutes, it got me a panic attack as I did not see any of my students yet. I was so anxious about where they were but then I got a text message from one of the parent of my student. I could not help myself but did a fast reaction to inform the comittee that my students were late. I kept updating all information I got about the first round to the parents who were being curious about the chance to join the first round of Mini Bee competition.
The first turn of Mini Bee competition for Grade two had been just started but I was still waiting for my students to be there. When the committee was doing the final checking on the name list of the first round participants for the second turn, I saw Grace, the second grader, and her mom and also her brother running across the food loft on the fourth floor to the place where Mini Bee competition was held. What a relieved feeling I had to see them could make it on the last minute. As soon as Grace got her seat number, Angelina and Angelita and also their family showed up. I could feel their nervous feeling at the same time that I asked them how they felt. I knew they would do their best. That was their first chance to be with other students from different schools whom I believe having nervous feeling too.
They need less than 20 minutes to finish the first round. I was hoping I could take some pictures of them when they did type the words, but no parents or teachers were allowed to be with the kids in the computer room. Charlenne, Angelina, Angelita, Grace and all of my students were showing their smile when they got out of the room. Their smiles however, had kept me wondering on the words they had in that room. Some of them said there were many difficult words, some of them could answer correctly. Above all, I was glad I could accompany them in their first round, be with them in words practices at school, and gave them support right there when they went in.
The results were on their website 2 days after the first round. I could not wait to inform my students who succeeded in their first round and will be in the final round. I was glad to find out that 5 students from IVY school among all more than a hundred participants of Mini Bee competition got into the final round. They are Michael Morino from grade 3, Steffi from Grade 4, Giovanni from grade 4, Jeslyn and Nicholas from grade 6. This time, I would be happy to help them to have extra words practices for their final round.
Editor : Yuni Safitri, S.Pd, M.Pd (cand)