DPSI Students N’Adom Darko-Asare and Aarna Tailor Share Their Experience on Winning the Spelling Bee Ghana Competition

Interview with Students N’Adom Darko-Asare and Aarna Tailor, and Spelling Bee Coach Michael Agordzo of DPS International Ghana

A student from the DPS International (DPSI) school in Ghana has won a place in the Scripps National Spelling Bee competition in the United States. 10-year-old N’Adom Darko-Asare won the 2022 DStv Spelling Bee Ghana competition in February and will represent Africa in Washington, DC. Aarna Tailor, 11 years old, was the second runner-up and won a trip to Kenya as her prize. They emerged from several rounds of competition in which more than 500 students from around Africa took part. Their Spelling Bee coach was Michael Agordzo.

How do you train for the competition and how do you learn so many new words?

Student N’Adom Darko-Asare: The Spelling Bee gave us some training and they gave us a lot of resources that we can use to learn our words. My brother and my parents also helped me.

What kinds of things do you think you have learned, especially new words that even some adults don’t know?

Darko-Asare: A lot of vocabulary and their origins. There are a lot of words that you have never heard of and when it comes to the Spelling Bee, you are astonished to hear all of them.

How do you learn? What is the process that you go through?

Darko-Asare: There is a word list that you can use to study. And the Spelling Bee also gives us some resources where you can find the meaning of words and examples. When you research the words you can find the origin, the pronunciation, and the definition of the word.

Do you have to speak different languages to know where words come from?

Darko-Asare: No. You just have to learn the roots of the word. When you understand the word, and you know where it comes from, you know how to spell it. There are rules to spelling words from all languages.

In this competition, do you need to know the meaning of words?

Darko-Asare: No. Except for in the vocabulary. You go to the vocabulary stage before you enter the national stage.

How long did you prepare for the competition?

Darko-Asare: The competition lasts for a whole year. It starts in February and ends in February the next year, so you go through a lot of preparation during that time.

What was the most difficult challenge for you?

Darko-Asare: In the Spelling Bee you have to learn the origins and you have to learn the rules to spell the word. If you do not know the rules, you cannot spell the word from another origin. The way it is spelt in English will not be the way it is spelt in Greek. In Greek, if you hear the ‘F’ sound, it is essentially spelled ‘PH’ but if you go into English, it is just going to be spelled with an ‘F.’

When did you decide you wanted to be in the competition?

Student Aarna Tailor: This is my second year. I started in 2020, but I got out and then came back in 2021 and it took me one more year of training. I did a lot of training at the school and the Spelling Bee trainers helped us.

What made you want to enter the competition? Was it your decision, or your parents, or something else?

Tailor: I wanted to do the competition because all of my other seniors had done it. They inspired me.

Do you think you have learned any soft skills that will help you now and later in life?

Tailor: Yes. I have improved my public speaking skills and my self confidence in many ways. It has also helped me in the English language that we are learning in school, so I have more of a broad vocabulary to write essays or any other kind of writing.

Do you speak other languages than English?

Tailor: Yes. I am learning French right now at school and I also speak my mother tongue, so I can speak two other languages.

Michael, is this your first year coaching students at the school, or have you done it before?

Spelling Bee Coach Michael Agordzo: This is my second year. The first year we did not really get far, so now we have more contact time and let them do much more work with their resources. It is a year-round competition, so you need to keep pushing them every now and then. Help them with strategies and more techniques and let them do more spelling. Sometimes we can do hundreds of words in a day. We study words in books and then move onto another origin and we do it continuously. One of the things we make sure of is if we make a spelling mistake, we do not make it twice.

What resources does DPSI provide for the students?

Agordzo: Some of the resources come from the Scripps Spelling Bee in the USA. We also download other resources that will help in the competition, and sometimes we let them do online competitions. We also ask them to do manual study.

Do you think winning a competition helps the visibility of the school?

Agordzo: Yes, it really does because once you win the competition, the school’s name is everywhere. Even beyond the country. We are not only representing Ghana, but all of Africa.

What are the expectations going into the Scripps Spelling Bee?

Agordzo: Even though we won the national competition, we are still not done. We now move onto something bigger. We are going to face competition in the USA that is quite tough, so we have started serious preparations. We have to be in the US by May.

N’Adom and Aarna, have you had time for other studies or has this dominated your time?

Darko-Asare: When I come home from school, I just do my homework then eat dinner and sometimes I have some free time before I go and learn for the Spelling Bee. I take about 2 hours to study.

Tailor: I am not doing the Spelling Bee now, but last year, I used to finish studying and then I would do the Spelling Bee for at least one hour a day.

What do you think you will get from this competition?

Darko-Asare: I think I will learn a lot that I have not already learned here in Ghana because this (the US) is a different country, and they do things in a different way.

ABOUT DPSI GHANA: DPSI was commenced in the year 2010 aiming for quality education and excellent learning, providing holistic, modern, comprehensive, technology-driven classes right from Creche to A Level. With the motto “Service Beyond Self”, DPSI strives to excel the needs of children in Ghana and its neighbouring countries.

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