Winners of the English Premier League spelling competition at St Xavier’s School in Patna on Friday. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Patna, Aug. 6: Jeslin, a student of the Notre Dame Academy thought hard. She took sometime, gazed though the sky and then carefully spelt Fahrenheit. The audience cheered her and clapped.

It was the premier league but cricket was nowhere to be seen. It was the league of literature, about spellings.

As many as 10 Patna-based schools competed with each other in the English Premier League held at the St Xavier’s School today. The excitement was high and so was the expectation as the participants fought it out to be the spell champs. Among the schools that participated in the event included the Mount Carmel, St Xavier’s, International School and Leeds Asian School.

The students with a brave face revised and re-revised the words they spelt till the last moment. They put up a tough fight as the announcer gave them a tough time by giving them difficult and tricky words. A volley of words was fired at the students in written and oral rounds.

(From top) Seema Kumari and Titu Kumari, two triumphant participants of the meet. Pictures by Nagendra Kumar Singh

In the written round, they were given seven words to spell, out of which a minimum of three had to be spelt correctly to qualify for the next level. For the oral round, the students were called on to the stage and were given a single word to spell within 45 seconds and they had the liberty to ask the announcer for the parts of speech, meaning and the origin of the word. The participants worked hard knowing well that misplacing a single alphabet could make or break their chances of winning the league. Parents and teachers were glued to their seats till the very end. Anxiety and suspense filled the air. They were seen cheering up and encouraging their wards whenever a word was spelt correctly.

Around 1,800 students of the top schools participated in the event. Of them, 115 were shortlisted for the finale.

The purpose, as the organisers said, was to enhance the vocabulary of the students. “And a competition was the best way to mould their thoughts,” said an organiser.

In grade 3 and 4 categories, Neha Verma of the Notre Dame Academy was declared the champion. The first runner-up prize went to Sanket Tripathi. Pratyaksha won the third prize.

In grade 5 and 6 categories, Ananya Sinha, again from the Notre Dame Academy won the first prize, followed by Jitiksha Pandey of the same school and Zain Zafar of the International School, Patliputra. In the class VII to VIII category, Deeksha Bhatt of the Notre Dam Academy won the first place, followed by Anushka of the International School CBSE and Aishwarya Mookhey of the same school.