Welcome back, SIR!

Nurjehan Mohamed
New Straits Times
03-20-2011
Welcome back, SIR!
Byline: Nurjehan Mohamed
Edition: New Sunday Times
Section: Main Section

KUALA LUMPUR: Kenneth Wu Min Jin has the hopes of his school riding on his shoulders.

Wu, the RHB-New Straits Times National Spell-It-Right (SIR) Challenge season three secondary school winner, is entering this year's competition and is expected to repeat his sterling performance.
"My teachers, friends at school and everyone else I know are hoping for me to win again," he says, adding that he tries to not let the pressure get to him.

Wu is among the SIR veterans who will be back to defend or improve their performance at the challenge, which starts on April 8 in Sungai Petani, Kedah.

This year's SIR (season four) promises to be an exciting one with new rules, words from more dictionaries and better prizes.

For the first time, the competition is not only open to national and vernacular schools, but also private schools that use the national curriculum.

Entry is on an individual basis and up to 10 students per school can participate. An additional 10 consolation prizes will be given out at state challenges, on top of existing rewards for the top five winners.

The word list will comprise terms from the advanced learner's version of Oxford, Collins Cobuild and Cambridge dictionaries as well as Merriam-Webster Online, Dictionary.com and MSN Encarta.

As in previous years, the competitions will be held at shopping malls and halls.

Wu knows that failure is a very real possibility -- he has seen how former champions tripped up on seemingly easy words at state challenges.

"It's not about whether a word is easy or not, but whether we know it or not," he says.

He hopes to catch up with fellow spellers such as Allyna Ng Ming Yi (Malacca secondary school winner last year) and Alexander Woo Khai Feng (Perak primary school champion in 2009).

Though Ng has indicated that she will take a break from spelling this year, Woo plans to redeem himself after striking out at last year's state preliminary rounds.

Woo is pretty relaxed as the Perak challenge is still over a month away. But he has devised a method to enhance his chances of winning.

"I am changing my strategy slightly and will be looking up more words online," says the Form Two student.

The irrepressible youngster is happy that more of his friends from school can join this season as participation is based on individual entries.

Other familiar names hoping to better their performance in season four are Angeline Christie Danny, Prasshanth Sagar, Ahmad Afif Ahmad Adli and Adriana Safia Shamsul Kahar.

Angeline, who was last season's Selangor primary school champion, is raring to go. But the confident 12-year-old from SK Pandan Perdana will stick to what she does best: reading her favourite books and looking through the dictionary.

Prasshanth, who came in fourth at the Penang primary school challenge last year, hopes to improve his standing this season.

"I've started looking up words on the Internet and browsing through books," says the 12-year-old.

Though individual entries are accepted, his school, SK Minden Heights, is compiling forms of contestants to submit them together.

Ahmad Afif stood out among the contestants at the Penang primary school challenge last year because he was the sole contender from his school.

The Form One student looks forward to joining his first secondary school challenge.

"I know it will be tough but I think it'll also be fun."

Adriana Safia, who rounded up her friends to compete last year in the Kelantan primary challenge, hopes for a bigger piece of the action this year.

"I haven't really started preparing yet but I'm excited about the contest," said the Year Four pupil of SJK(C) Chung Hwa.

Sharing the SIR veterans' enthusiasm is NSTP marketing director Zuraida Mohamad, who promised to bring more of the contest's excitement to viewers at home.

"The competition is beyond just the moment of triumph or defeat at the end of the competition.

"It is during the preparation stage that a child improves himself. And that is what the competition is about," she says.

For full details of the challenge, visit www.nst.com.my/SIR or www.rhb.com.my

See Learning Curve (H27) for the list of venues

(Copyright 2011)