J
Jul
Guest
I would like to get your thoughts and reviews on the TV broadcasts of the 2006 National Spelling that aired yesterday on ESPN and ABC.
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fred flintstone
Guest
What a load! The rules are not what I remember in school.They fed the kids definitions and entymology. They used words not in common use. So it's all about how good a kid is at figuring out and guessing the spelling from the clues. The runner up lost because she forgot that in German words W is pronounced like V.Then each kid gets different words so it's not a level playing field.And the contests were all at that awkward age: Too old be cute, too young to be hot.
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FreddyE1977
Guest
Another sore point for me with ESPN. They won't show me hockey, won't show college baseball until the CWS, won't show a lot of other sports....but will load me down with blowhard opinion shows, cheesy made-for-tv movies, endless hours of poker, and now THIS??!!It seems to me that several years ago, there was a fierce internal debate at ESPN between the television programming people and the sports people.....and the sports people LOST!
I'm prejudiced on two counts: one, I'm a teacher who findshimself constantly correcting students' spelling; two, I participatedin the National Spelling Bee when I was in sixth grade (I got eliminatedin the local finals in Norfolk, VA). So I'm SO glad to see kids whocan spell and also act as if they have some brainpower beyond memorizinga dictionary.The rules have changed since I competed in the '60s. We were notallowed to ask for pronunciations ad nauseum, nor definitions, norlanguage of origin. But the whole idea of giving these kids obscurewords is to eliminate them; otherwise, the contest would go on forever.And at least in my day, the years of eligibility were fifth through eighthgrade, so as to prevent an unfair advantage to high-school kids or anunfair disadvantage to younger kids.Now, as for the value of this thing as a television show, again I'mprejudiced; I love this sort of competition, I wish GE College Bowlwould come back (heck, I wish the big-money shows of the '50slike Twenty-One would return in their original formats but if contestantscouldn't answer the questions without help back then, how would theyfare today?), but even I found my mind wandering at times. I somehowsuspect CBS's Gameshow Marathon beat the National Spelling Bee (anybodyknow how The Price Is Right did on Wednesday?).But I want it to become cool to be smart, and since the NSB is gettingbigger every year, I'll be happy to see it on ABC again next year.
J
Jul
Guest
From Reuters:bpatrick said:
More info: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060602/tv_nm/ratings_dc;_ylt=AplAW5nSkLPQgZ0wwvODnpi5GL8C;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
Another sore point for me with ESPN. They won't show me hockey, won't show college baseball until the CWS, won't show a lot of other sports....but will load me down with blowhard opinion shows, cheesy made-for-tv movies, endless hours of poker, and now THIS??!!It seems to me that several years ago, there was a fierce internal debate at ESPN between the television programming people and the sports people.....and the sports people LOST!I AGREE WITH YOU! ;DIt's time that the network should change it's name to ABC SPORTS orABC should dump its sports division all together.I actually took the time to watch this load of crap and I must say, I had no ideathe amount of strong words they had to force these kids down their throats.Welcome to the new ABC where we don't care about news or sports.It's all about winning the primetime battle :
(Hmm, paging NBC)And oh by the way I was glad that I was one of only 8 million that saw it.Makes me feel like I was a part of history in the wrong way.
(Hmm, paging NBC)And oh by the way I was glad that I was one of only 8 million that saw it.Makes me feel like I was a part of history in the wrong way.Given that ESPN usually has sports 24/7, I don't see anything wrong witha few hours one day a year for the National Spelling Bee. This country hasa crisis in education, particularly in kids' ability to use the English language,and I think it's not going to go away until kids decide it's as cool to be smartas it is to be a jock. I like sports as much as anyone and know they're goingto outrate something like the NSB, but hey, it's a step in the right directionto air the thing.FreddyE1977 said:
The Bee really is hardly worth televising anymore. Previous posts here pointed up some of the changes that make it less an event of sharper kids spelling oftentime pretty tricky words and more of a put-on. Now the Bee looks as if it is on the script from Game Show. Contestants engage in more dramatics and theatrics than actual spelling prowess--asking for endless pronunciations and using the word in a sentence, long pauses, furrowed brows....the whole nine yards. The Bee has become more of a production than a test of skill. It's bad drama, definitely not cute, and certainly not worth watching. Perhaps better suited for C-SPAN at 3 AM.
What baffled me was the fact that the judges had one of the words misspelled. Don't you think they would spend that extra second making sure all of their words were spelled right?As for the entire event, I think it's great to showcase some smart kids on TV. Plus it would be nearly impossible to spell any of those words right without asking for clues. Take a look at the winning words over the years and you'll notice an increase in difficulty:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scripps_National_Spelling_Bee#Champions_and_winning_wordsYears ago they probably didn't get all the assistance they do now because they didn't need it! Imagine winning a huge bee like this by spelling "therapy" or "initials," which kids did back in the 1940s.
I saw that and can't believe the judge answered either(what's next: Wheel of Fortune--is there a T? I'd like tobuy a vowel...).Seriously, the National Spelling Bee did fairly well, rankingin a tie for 20th among all shows (tied with Law & Order: SVU),with 8.5 million viewers. Given that viewing is heading downwardwith summer here, that's nothing to sneeze at.
J
Jul
Guest
Check this out: http://www.thefutoncritic.com/pr.aspx?id=20060606abc01
Sad but true. A friend of mine who is a teacher counted a test answer wrong because the student actually gave an incorrect response. The girl reasoned that she answered SOMETHING and should therefore get full credit.Perhaps the spelling bee can adopt the same policy. If the word is "pneumatic" and the contestant spells "dog," correctly, perhaps, it's counted as being right. Then, everybody is a winner.
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