EP Open House

Well it's nearly time for the annual EP Open House competition, a competition for all the Government Mini/English Programes in South Thailand. Last year a school in Nakhon won and hopefully that honour will stay in the city.

If you want details, the rules or just want to have a look, all the details can be found here: Open House Rules

Congratulations to Benjama School who we think won the competition meaning that the 'trophy' will once again be staying in Nakhonsrithammarat.

I will add that some of the students taking part were exceptional. The standard of their English was extremely high.

Admin wrote:Congratulations to Benjama School who we think won the competition meaning that the 'trophy' will once again be staying in Nakhonsrithammarat.

Hmmm, it seems that I might have been a little hasty in congratulating. I'm hearing rumours that it is in fact Kanlayanee School that tops the medal list. Confirmation apparently coming soon.

Well by joining almost every competition we are bound to win a few more than the other schools...

We can argue about that in the endless evenings that will come during our vacation...

I think in percentage, Benjama won the most... Congrats to them... Very good work...

(Guess that they had to do something after that awful last year)...

Question, how come the students in NST get so much gold without any foreignes being tourists here? Why is Phuket and Krabi not much better???

I helped the Scrabble players.

One team challenged the word "QIS" and lost because it's a good word in the Scrabble dictionary. I have no idea what a QIS is. From their dictionary, the students knew that QI was a good word but they didn't see QIS. Apparently, it was good in another dictionary.

My other team got jipped because they told me that the order of teams was in the wrong order. How did they screw that up? Couldn't the judges have seen that? I wish I was there.

There are two main dictionaries used for Scrabble, the TWL98 and the SOWPODS. The first, the TWL98 is American based and the latter, the SOWPODS is used mainly by Britain and its Commonwealth countries.

The word QIS is not listed in TWL98 but is in the SOWPODS dictionary.

Incidentally, QIS and the 2 letter word QI mean 'vital life-sustaining energy force'

So, next time you play competitive Scrabble, it might be best to see which dictionary is being used.

It is hard to be a judge in a competition, there will always be someone complaining on how to do it... Take it as good practice and hope that the students understand more when they leave school... Don't expect too much!!!

Well all i can say is that when referring to the English language, either the Cambridge or Oxford dictionary should be used. It makes sense really.

No wonder there are cockups when the American dictionary is being used as the "Bible of English" in Scrabble.

On another note the "Scrabble Dictionary" is a complete joke!!!