Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools held its first-ever Concurso de Deletreo on Tuesday — an event that may be more familiar in its English translation: A spelling bee.
The Spanish language is a growing part of life in Charlotte. Hispanic students are the second-largest group in CMS, accounting for more than 30% of total enrollment, and the district has three magnet schools that offer Spanish immersion.
“We know that the future is bilingual,” said Luz Pachon, Spanish facilitator at Charlotte East Language Academy. Her school hosted the Spanish spelling bee, which coincided with the United Nations Spanish Language Day.
“When they are learning the language we want them to be not only bilingual, that they are able to speak the language, but also be biliterate, that they can read it and write it very well,” Pachon said.
The district’s three Spanish magnet schools — Charlotte East, Oaklawn and Collinswood — sent their best spellers in grades three, four, five and six. The 12 students on stage were sending a message to the parents in the audience as well, Pachon said.
“We are also educating parents to preserve the language. Because when they come here they believe that English is the most important thing,” she said. “But kids are immersed in English. They will learn it no matter what.”
Spanish, Pachon said, is “a treasure that they have to keep and grow.” And being able to speak and write two languages well makes students more desirable in the job market.
Easier to spell?
Some English speakers may be wondering how tough a Spanish spelling bee could be. After all, the language is far more phonetically consistent than English.
Griselda Perez, magnet coordinator at Collinswood Language Academy, says Spanish includes various accents and twists that make it “harder than what people think.”
That became clear as students got instructions — in English and Spanish, to accommodate the bilingual audience — on how to pronounce each letter while spelling. And after only four rounds, the field of 12 was winnowed to two finalists: Luis Rico and Vicente Alcayaga, both from Charlotte East Language Academy.
Vicente won by correctly spelling “sandía” — “watermelon” in English.
“I practiced a lot,” said Vicente, an 11-year-old fifth-grader. “You know, even though I wanted to play I still practiced a lot.”
Vicente’s family came to the United States from Chile three years ago, and they mostly speak Spanish at home. He’s one of almost 36,000 CMS students whose families speak Spanish, a number that’s growing rapidly. Vicente says he started learning English using the Duolingo app, but he wasn’t very good at it when he arrived.
“So, kind of my best friend was Google Translate,” he said after the concurso (that’s Spanish for contest). “I looked up the words that I wanted to say in English, and I just kept repeating them until I learned them.”
How well has that worked? Let’s just say that Vicente also won his school’s English spelling bee this year — and made it to the final round of the districtwide competition.
