Dominican Student Wins Third Place in XII Latin American Spelling and Writing Contest

Dominican Student Wins Third Place in XII Latin American Spelling and Writing Contest
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic  12/12/2011

The Dominican Republic won third place in the XII Hispano-American Spelling and Writing Contest held recently in Mexico where 13 Spanish-speaking countries participated.

The DR was re represented by the champion of the VI National First Student Spelling for Television Contest, Gabriela Sofía Gómez Estévez, from the La Salle School. She accumulated 37 points, putting her in third place.

The other countries competing in the contest included Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, Guatemala, Paraguay, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Mexico.

The other countries competing in the contest included Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, Guatemala, Paraguay, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Mexico. The competition was held in the Education Ministry’s Hispano-American Hall near the Zocalo in Mexico City.

The first test consisted of a 40-word dictation with a certain degree of difficulty and daily usage in which Gabriela Gómez got the highest score in punctuation, allowing her to move on to the next round where contestants were disqualified if they missed four or more words.

In the following level, they were dictated another 40-word, more complex phrase. It was in this phase of the competition that they combined points earned in the three major sections and Gabriela came away with 37 points earned.

Gabriela has been reading since she was a little girl, she said, and still reads at least one book per week.

She was awarded a certificate and a trophy which states that she is third place winner. She also took home a laptop, cash prize, books and other objects.

First place winner of the contest was Carlos Jaime Jiménez of Cuba who accumulated   39 correct answers and second place went to Magdalena Rodríguez from Spain with 38.

In addition to Gómez, there were other members of the Dominican delegation which included school teacher, Tomasina Luna Luna, coordinator of Spanish Language for the Santiago Region and Emeterio Alcántara Crisóstomo, who is in charge of the Olympics for the Ministry of Education.