Spelling bee makes ESL students feel at home

It’s the double consonants that give Mathuradevi Mahendrajah the most trouble. Words like “addition.”

It’s the language itself that bugs Mohammed Yasin Pouya. He finally put in words why.

“English is a crazy language. There are a lot of exceptions, too many exceptions because of all the other languages that are coming into English with their words.”

So Pouya, a mining engineer from Afghanistan, stayed on the sidelines, cheering and whistling, as Mahendrajah and three others in Maria Jones’ language class captured top honours in the city-wide ESL spelling competition last month.

They cheered and whistled through three, three-hour rounds at City Hall. Afterward, the Toronto Star and OISE (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education) threw an awards celebration. Talking about the event, it’s what they learned about themselves and their new country that lingers.

Strangers two months before, the dozen adults from almost as many countries became a tight team. As soon as they heard about the competition, the cheering squad started coaching their best prospects.

Yueh Hua Lin is the city’s champion ESL competition speller, vanquishing the opposition with “abbreviation.” A former Mandarin teacher herself, she whipped off the spelling without hesitation.

What she remembers particularly, though, is that Chen Chung Shao, who walks with difficulty on crutches, turned up for every hour of the rounds and the celebration.

“We’re from the same country – Taiwan,” explains Shao, a chemical engineer for 29 years who arrived just two months before the contest. “If I’m still sitting here next year, I’ll be interested” in competing, he says. The first priority, though, is finding a job.

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TheStar.com | GTA | Spelling bee makes ESL students feel at home.