6/5/2012
Getty Images. Snigdha Nandipati spells
'guetapens' to win 2012 Scripps National
Spelling Bee. 2012. Photograph.
Zap2ItWeb. 5 Jun 2012.
Last week, one of the country’s most talked-about prodigy students took home a Middlebury Interactive Languages course. Snigdha Nandipati won the 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee after competing against 278 other contestants and acing her championship word, “guetapens.” Middlebury Interactive Languages was happy to provide one of its world language courses and a NOOK Color as part of the award to this year’s Spelling Bee winner.
Snigdha's success shows how technology can support and strengthen learning. According to the Los Angeles Times, Snigdha’s father exceled his daughter’s memorization by creating a program that would generate flashcards from an online dictionary. The program quickened the usually laborious process of preparing study materials. Over time, Snigdha collected 30,000 PDF flashcards that would ready her for the final contest. This study strategy exemplifies how technology can make learning more efficient and help students cover demanding material.
The Bee also shows that knowledge of world languages can enhance students’ overall academic ability. In an interview with New Delhi Television, Snigdha points out that “spellers use their root knowledge and some vocabulary words that they have spelled. It is helpful for SATs and essay writings and helps a lot in school.” Snigdha’s championship word testifies to this observation: “guetapens” is a French derivation that means an ambush or trap. Likewise, in 2010, Anamika Veeramani won the Scripps Bee by spelling the word “stromuhr,” a German word meaning "stream clock"; and, in 2008, Sameer Mishra’s championship word was “guerdon,” a French noun meaning “reward”. One of Snigdha’s 2012 competitors, Arvind Mahankali, reflects that he was “eliminated both times by German words” and now “knows what [he] has to study.”
According to David Crystal’s English as a Global Language, English has borrowed words from 350 languages and bases around three-quarters of its lexicon in Classical or Romance languages. No wonder world language skills can play an important role in other school subjects. A big “thank you” to the Scripps National Spelling Bee and its contestants for spotlighting this importance, and congratulations to Snigdha Nandipati. We hope she enjoys our world language course!
Great story. The flashcard generating program sounds like a great idea. I'm sure the same could be done with bi-lingual dictionaries if it hasn't been done already.
ReplyDeleteBesides the German, Latin, and the Romance Languages, Snigdha Nandipati would probably have benefited from a Greek course. Which Middlebury course did she choose?