National Spelling Bee Contest 2023

October 23, 2023, Bishkek – Twenty-four of the Kyrgyz Republic’s best English language spellers participated in the 2023 National Spelling Bee Contest. The National Spelling Bee – hosted by the Lingua Foundation for Innovative Education and the U.S. Embassy in the Kyrgyz Republic – took place on October 21, 2023, at the American Center at the Republican Library for Children and Youth named after K. Bayalinov.

The winners of the National Spelling Bee represent different regions of the Kyrgyz Republic;

· First place: Marsel Temirkulov, Bishkek, Kyrgyz State Technical University

· Second place: Munavvar Akhmatkulova, Osh, Kyrgyz-Uzbek International University

· Third place: Adinai Mukambetova, Naryn, University of Central Asia

· Fourth place: Arstanbek Abdyldaev, Naryn, University of Central Asia

In November 2023, these National Spelling Bee will represent the Kyrgyz Republic in the U.S. Government-funded Central Asian Regional Spelling Bee Contest in Dushanbe and will compete with top spellers from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

For the last month, the network of eight U.S. Embassy-funded American Spaces in the Kyrgyz Republic organized local spelling bee contests to select three participants from each region to compete in the national contest. This year marks the sixth year that the American Spaces have organized English spelling bees. These contests encourage young people to learn the English language and present educational opportunities for young people across the Kyrgyz Republic.

Spelling bees started in the United States in the 1800s to motivate students to learn the standardized spellings from the newly published Webster’s Dictionary. The first U.S. national competition was held in 1908 in Cleveland, and the event has been an annual occurrence since 1925.

Spelling bees require contestants to recite words they hear and correctly spell them as listed in the dictionary. The person may ask the host to repeat the word; provide the definition, part of speech and language of origin; and use it in a sentence. The difficulty of the words varies, as English has adopted many words from other languages.

By U.S. Embassy Bishkek | 23 October, 2023 | Topics: News, Press Releases | Tags: contest