The Spelling Bee Competition SHAKESPERIOR 2024 was held for 2 days, from Saturday, Saturday, October 26 to Sunday, October 27, 2024. SHAKESPERIOR is an annual event organized by the English Department Student Association (EDSA) to celebrate EDSA’s Anniversary. Like every year, SHAKESPERIOR 2024 also included various events, divided into internal and external events. Internal events were organized for all English Language and Literature students from all cohorts, as well as for English department staff and faculty members. Internal events included the “Rap Session”, Basketball matches, Futsal matches, and an E-Tournament. On the other hand, external events were open to high school students from East Java and included various English competitions such as Spelling Bee, English Olympics, English Debate, and News Anchor.

    The Spelling Bee marked the beginning of the competitions and was held offline. It took place at the Faculty of Humanities, Campus B, Universitas Airlangga. The competition was attended by 35 participants who had been pre-selected through a Spelling video submission. This video selection system was a new requirement for this year. The goal was to increase accessibility to the SHAKESPERIOR 2024 Spelling Bee for high school students throughout East Java.

    The first day of the competition was the Preliminary Round. In this round, all 35 participants went through two stages. In the first stage, they were called randomly based on lottery numbers to come forward and select one of 35 envelopes. Inside each envelope were words they had to spell. The pronouncer would say the words twice before they can start spelling. The second stage followed the same system, but the difficulty level of the words increased. "The system is pretty similar between the first and second stages in the Preliminary Round, but what differentiates them is the difficulty level," said Tata, one of the PICs. 

    After the Preliminary Round, the top 5 participants were selected as finalists. The final round was held the next day, on Sunday, October 27, 2024. The final round also consisted of two stages. In the first stage, participants selected envelopes with words to spell, but the difficulty level was higher. In the second stage, a "first-come-first-served” system was used. The pronouncer read 50 words, and participants competed to spell each word first. The three participants with the highest scores emerged as the winners.

    The tension in the competition increased in the final round. The five participants showed amazing enthusiasm in competing for the top three positions. After a long process, the judges announced the Spelling Bee winners. Ilyas Kareem Rakhman from SMA Progresif Bumi Sholawat won 3rd place, Angelina Alexandra Kodiat Kohar from SMK St. Louis 2 took 2nd place, and Geovan Gabriel Emmanuel from SMA Kristen Gloria 2 emerged as the champion of this year’s Spelling Bee competition.

    The three winners were filled with joy and happiness. “I didn’t expect to win, I thought I’d be in fifth place," said Ilyas, the third-place winner. The winners received trophies, certificates, and fresh money as appreciation for their hard work. Happiness also shone on the faces of the teachers and parents who accompanied them. They documented their students and children with joy during the photo session. At the end of the competition, the project officer of SHAKESPERIOR 2024 congratulated the winners. "Congratulations to the winners, and I hope this is not the end of your journey but a stepping stone to overcoming future challenges. For those who haven’t succeeded yet, this is not the end of your journey," said Syehhan in his closing speech. The Spelling Bee competition brings joy not only to the participants and their parents, but also to the entire committee. 

Content Writer: Monica Devina Purbaningtyas

Editor: Nailabilla Salgrisia Ayoumi