Mohammed Wadi Arhab, 15, Fromconstantine, and AtefBahri, 22, from Mila won the National English Spelling Bee sponsored by the US Embassy in Algiers and the Berlitz school.<\/p>\n
Arhab was crowned champion in the junior category after spelling the word “embarrassing” correctly and Atef won the competition in the adult category by spelling the word “therapeutic”.<\/p>\n
Organized at the Holiday Inn in Algiers on March 25, the competition brought together ten children and ten adults from several wilayas.<\/p>\n
These twenty candidates qualified for the regional selections in November 2021 which took place in Algiers, Oran, Constantine, Ouargla and B\u00e9char. The participants, accompanied by their families, went to Algiers to take part in the final.<\/p>\n
“Promoting the learning of English”<\/p>\n
“The impressive thing about these participants is that English is not their native language, but they all learned English and came here today to stand in front of an audience and spell words in English,” said Elizabeth Moore Aubin, U.S. Ambassador to Algiers, “It takes a lot of courage,” she added.<\/p>\n
In addition to the title of “English Language Spelling Champion”, Arhab and Bahri were each offered a laptop and a trophy.<\/p>\n
The two vice-finalists returned home with tablets. The National Spelling Bee is included in the program of the American spaces of the U.S. Embassy, through which four American cultural centers operate in Algeria.<\/p>\n
Spelling bee contests are common in American schools, and the annual national spelling bee, televised, is a widely followed event in the United States.<\/p>\n
“Competitions like this highlight the importance of the English language, one of my main priorities is to promote the learning of English,” Ambassador Aubin said at the competition.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Embassy also promotes the English language through a partnership between Columbia University Teachers College and the Algerian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research aimed at improving the teaching and use of the English language throughout the Algerian university system, through its Access program, which offers nearly 200 students from low-income families two years of English language education and through the Link program, offering professional English courses to about 120 Algerian government officials.<\/p>\n