International English Spelling Day

On Spelling Day, October 9, look around you -  

• FIND OUT about people who cannot read, reform in other languages, changes in English spelling
  Have a special study of Spelling at school, college and University research departments
  and practice some Spelling Improvement yourself   How can schooling be made into real Discovery Learning?

  Be well prepared for Spelling Day

  Publicity, press releases, interviews, classroom activities, quizzes,
  Drama - scripts are available or write your own
  Spelling games, Sales of gimiks and gajets, A competition for Spelling Day
  Spelling Spotters and Spelling Watchers activities

  and for all Bad Spellers, cheer up! See the cartoon graphics video www.ozreadandspell.com.au

  Spelling as an entertainment

  • Spelling Games - starting with a Spelling ABC - different from a Spelling BEE
  • 16-word Spelling Test of 16 common words that few experts can spell all correctly.
  • How people spelled when they spelled as they liked before the 18th century dictionaries
  • Some experimental materials you can use in your own experiments

International Competition for Spelling Day

For the best collection of spelling jokes. Collect cartoons, limericks, quips, riddles, anecdotes, drawings, plays - and make up your own.

Prizes for individual collections: Booklets of Spelling Games andSpelling Cartoon memo booklets.
Prize for the best school collection: A take-home Teach Yourself toRead and Spell video and manual. The usual competition rules apply.
Contributions without prior copyright can be included in a Spelling Jokebook being compiled in aid of literacy innovations.

Send your contribution to Val Yule. Label your entry Spelling Jokes Competition

Closing date - November
Winners announced December 30  

Why do Koreans celebrate their own National Spelling Day?

King Sejong the Great, the Fourth Monarch of the Yi Dynasty of the Chosen Kingdom in Korea hundreds of years ago ordered his scholars to find a simple method of writing down spoken Korean so that even the common people would be able to express their thoughts in writing.

They looked around overseas, but saw nothing they thought good enough, so they made up their own, promulgated in 1443 - a set of symbols consisting of 11 vowels and 17 consonants that are arranged in syllables which block into words. In 1933 this was standardised to tenvowels and 14 consonants, making it easier still. Today the Hangul alphabet is acclaimed as one of the world's great literacy achievements and themost remarkable phonetic alphabet ever produced.

When Korea was under Japanese occupation, using and maintaining the Hangul writing system instead of Japanese became a major tool of expression of Korean nationalism. When Korea wasliberated from Japan in 1945, Hangul Day was instituted as part of the celebrations,with a national holiday every year.
Today it is no longer a national holiday but it is still celebrated.

See the story of the Korean writing system, and how change was brought in

• Hangul Day is celebrated with a ceremony in which distinguished guests and scholars commemorate the Handle writing systemand hold a conference to ways of keeping it as useful as possible. Essay writing competitions are also organised throughout Korea.

How marvellous when the English writing system is also celebrated and made as useful as possible!

Join the campain for an International English Spelling Commission

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