Did you learn anything in English?

Absolutely. I know I have tons of typos all over Fluther, but I really can write a decent sentence. I know that the hiding place is somewhere between Jane and me, because I learned some grammar in school. A lot of people are walking around saying between Jane and I in that sentence.

In my last three years of high school each semester of English was different. One was focused on writing. Another literature. Another in giving your reports in an oral speech format. I don’t remember all the others. I think it was a good way to do it. I don’t know if they still do it that way.

Reading and English were some of my least favorite classes when I was young, because I hated reading. Later when the classes moved away from such an emphasis on reading I enjoyed it more and learned much more.

I worked as an Executive Assistant to a VP of Communications in a very large multinational company for a while. I think my English classes helped with that. Another great help was I grew up in a family with strong language skills.

When I worked in retail I put together reports that definitely used my skills at organizing information in an outline format. Most of which I learned in secondary school.

Exposure to literature gave me a sense of understanding the power of excellent writing. Influencing the outcome of a situation through eloquent word usage is a valuable skill to have in almost any walk of life. It’s not just about grammar, it’s about language.
If you think that you didn’t learn anything from reading literature, you are not aware of the ways in which good writing can positively influence the way we think, and as a result, decide how to act.
If you honestly didn’t get anything from that, what a shame.

The most useful course I had in high school was sophomore English. The main focus was on writing essays. We were encouraged to follow the standard model of introduction, exposition and conclusion. I came out of the class a much better writer.

The teacher also made use of an interesting pedagogical technique. He required that, in addition to class assignments, we hand in a piece of writing each week, which we would not be graded on. The writing could be as long or short as we wished and could be an essay, poem or whatever we wanted. I looked on this as having a captive audience of one. I wrote my thoughts on a whole range of topics. The act of writing forced me to sharpen my thinking.

I agree with @canidmajor. As a non-native English speaker, I learn English from many things: grammar exercises, reading, writing… but I find out that reading (beside writing) plays a crucial part in my improvement. Through reading I learn about the wording of native speakers, what kind of expression they use, and how to make my writing more natural. Without reading my English can never escape the influence of my mother tongue. And writing is the way I put what I learn from reading into practice.

I’m currently studying another language, and that rule also applies.

The only part of English I disliked was diagramming sentences. To this day I detest it; I shudder even thinking about it. I don’t even know if they do that any more. I do not recall ever having to assist my kids with it when they were doing their homework.

The rest, spelling, literature, writing, poetry etc was ok.

English is not to be the most spoken language in the globe, although it is the official language in the top countries. And if we don’t know how to speak and read English so we should learn and we should be a good speaker in English, if we can speak English so we can get job easily this is the main and big positive point.

I remember what seemed to be two completely different subjects being taught in English class. There was literature, and then there was grammar, taught in the same class, but as two different subjects.

@sandracarter563 Is it the official language in the top countries? Which countries are you thinking of? It certainly is an important business and tourism language internationally. America primarily speaks and uses English, but it is not the official language. There is no official language in America.

Unlike @rojo, the one thing I remember as being really enlightening about my high school English classes was diagramming sentences. Not sure what this says about me, but there was a thrill in considering the constituent parts of a sentence and graphically representing their relationships. I doubt that I could sit down and do it formally now, but I do still occasionally refer back to the basic principles when parsing out a complex sentence.

@thorninmud Along with diagramming sentences, I also disliked proofs in Analytic Geometry. Not sure what that says about me either though.

I LOVED diagramming sentences! and Geometry was my favorite type of math and I ended up doing accounting, so I’m not sure what that says about me. Also, diagramming sentences helped me learn my second language.

Not much, but I was a school dropout. Thing is, I speak French as a first language, and grasped the English language pretty quickly. However most of that came from the internet, video games, hanging out with kids who spoke English, and reading. Those things taught me more about English than school ever did.
I still have a lot of problems with grammar though, but I don’t think I’m all that horrible.

Your question rings a loud gong in my head, because it’s the perfect description of what I thought I had acquired from all of that forced reading——nothing. The English classes came easy to me because I’d always been a big reader. But I bridled at trying to digest that endless blizzard of crap that didn’t interest me one bit. I have no idea how long you’ve been out of high school, but for me there is one conclusion that grows ever more certain with the passing years. I WAS A FOOL. In fact I was so wrong about the importance of what I was exposed to in those 4 brief years that the magnitude of my mistake worries the shit out of me. I cannot tell you how many times a day something is referenced in my head from the books, poems and plays that I thought I’d skimmed with disdain during what I left thinking were 4 thrown away years. The one thing I find myself doing as I age is reflecting ever more often on the past. And here is another example of the extraordinary good fortune that it is the story of my life. For no reason that I deserved, I was allowed to languor in a school so exceptional with teachers so gifted, that even a fool who didn’t give a shit could leave the place with a toolbox crammed to the top with implements sufficient to serve him the remainder of his lucky life. It doesn’t make sense, and it sort of frightens me.

Are you sure it wasn’t a literature class you took, and not an English class?

I loved all subjects….except English. I absolutely hate English.

I too loved diagramming sentences. And I remember reading ahead in my sixth grade English workbook because the language was so fascinating.

I discovered the subjunctive…

“Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific — and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.”

Some of you may not be clear on this, but I know the things English is supposed to teach students are important. The problem is that they almost never taught anything that wasn’t so basic that I already knew it. My English classes just sucked curriculum-wise, so there was barely anything to learn, it was mostly just busywork. It’s not a matter of me not getting why the subjects you’re supposed to learn in English are important, it’s a matter of the subjects actually taught in my particular English classes being mostly useless. How useless they were is a disappointment to me, because being able to effectively speak, read and write English is such an important skill.

@Lunar_Landscape but when you read, can’t you learn anything from how they write? If you exclude all your above-mentioned donkey work, then what is left is the wording, aka the way to write properly (which isn’t told by your teachers) There was time when I was given some long essays and asked to do exactly the same thing as you by my teachers. It was donkey work, sure, but I managed to learn how to write through reading those things. I didn’t learn from the donkey work my teachers gave me, but from reading a lot of essays they gave me. You don’t have to be so dependent on your teachers to master what you want.

Post on Facebook. They’ll tell you if you screw up!

My editor would have trouble with this sentence…

My English classes just sucked curriculum-wise.

I didn’t like that sentence when I wrote it, either.

@Dutchess_III They were called “English” classes, but they all amounted to English survey courses of assigned reading as well as required essays from us (called “themes”). There were also loads of vocabulary tests on obscure words featured in the assigned reading material. There was no time wasted on lessons in grammar, punctuation, diagramming of sentences and such, but mistakes were brutally noted and penalized for work handed in with misspelled words, bad grammar, etc. In addition to the book load, we were flogged with the dissection of a different play by Shakespeare each semester, with the torture lasting the entirety of the term. The vocabulary tests around those were appropriately nightmarish. I transferred into the school from a Jesuit prep school thinking I had fled “The Merchant of Venice”, only to be confronted immediately with “Julius Caesar” It was one of those exasperating “WTF” moments. Thinking back on it, I cannot for the life of me figure out how any teacher could wade through the amount of written material we were required to generate. If you consider teaching 4 classes a day consisting of 25–30 kids each assigned six 500 word essays a semester, the load of reading, correction and criticism must have been absolutely gruesome.

I learned that I hate being forced to read at a snail’s pace to accommodate a discussion with disinterested individuals. Nothing ruined a good book more than having to read it for class.

Actually, I was glad I was forced to read some of the books I read, because I wouldn’t have read them otherwise. Romeo and Juliet comes immediately to mind. I was forced to pay attention, and because of it I realized the astonishing talent Shakespeare had.

“What light through yonder window breaks? It is Juliet! And we’re only 14 years old! Mom and Dad are going to kill us!”

I agree with you. My comments regarding the plays reflect my attitude at the time. Of course most teenage boys are fools, and I qualified as drum major in the parade of idiots!

@Dutchess_III I hated reading, but I was very glad we read Romeo and Juliet and saw the move in class. Shakespeare we read in class, which was much more enjoyable to me, and discussed it as we went, and the movie I still love to watch.

You know the thing that bothers me about Shakespeare is just how spooky it is that one individual could have such an astounding output of so superb and insightful commentary on the human condition. Play after fkn play,and each an absolute masterpiece. It’s absolutely mind boggling. Sometimes when I consider the possibility of superior alien intelligence inhabiting the universe, and visiting the earth, I think that rather than trying to chase down flying saucers, it might not be a bad idea to consider the just far too prolific to be mortal careers of guy like Willy, Bach, Mozart, Gauss—you know the list

The other thing regarding genius I find troubling, is the seemingly large concentration of such types in German speaking places.

I had a student read a comic book of, I think, McBeth. The characters were portrayed by dogs. He was in 4th grade and he almost started crying when he finished. He said, “All the dogs piled up on each other and died! Everybody always pile up on each other and dies in Shakespeare’s plays. THEY ALL DIE!!!!” He dropped his head to his desk in despair.