English - The most bs subject taught?

[pitchfork]

You need to learn english to cope in the real world.

Geographys pointless though, in most lines of work anyway.
Geography, so you can be a geography teacher.

 

[Killerkebab]

I honestly don't understand this, why do ******* english teachers ask such retard questions like what is the context of this essay, who is the intended audience, and what is the author trying to persuade you of.

why don't they get real ******* jobs and stop asking questions to which nobody gives a flying toss about.

They are trying to teach you something about analysis and understanding the world around you. They teach you exactly what someone is saying in their written or spoken speech and along the way teach you a little bit of human culture. Eloquence is clearly not your greatest quality, and I suggest you work a little more at it. It will make you a more interesting person to your peers and you won't look like a total moron in public.

The english language cirriculum needs restructuring, so that rather than wasting time analysing poems and stories for some hidden meaning, people are tested on their ability to write formally, spelling, grammar etc. Real world stuff rather than story writing.

Analysis of written prose is crucial and should be taught more, rather than less. Knowing who the audience is, for instance, would help someone write a CV a lot more than you think - even your CV has its audience A good example is journalism - a more eloquent reader gets a lot more out of what they read, which is a point someone made above, I think.

This rant shows more of a problem with school in general than it does with English. School should be about learning to learn, rather than learning to live. I'd much rather a child just out of school be capable to learn more on his own rather than simply have the ability to write a CV and find a job. As an example (bear with me), a child who has spent all his English lessons analysis texts and the like will have a much greater ability to write a good CV and get his job, and then write his job reports, formal letters, anything.
A child who spent his English lessons how to write a good CV only knows how to write a good CV.

 

[semi-pro waster]

Oddly enough I am actively searching around just now for a decent book to refresh myself on the basics of English grammar, the details of punctuation and relearn those difficult to spell words like "committment", "Intelligence" and "Relevant" (Did I get those right ).

Close, commitment has only the one "t" but other than that you are right. I'd agree that we in the UK are rather lazy linguistically as a nation although part of the problem is that since English is so widely spoken it actually makes it more difficult to choose the second or third languages to learn.

 

[KNiVES]

That's the biggest load of rubbish I've heard all week. Do you also hate every other arts subject - history, languages, etc. - because they lean towards subjectivity? Do you not welcome the opportunity to express your own opinions once in a while, rather than reiterating what has been proven to be correct?

There's a hell of a lot more to life than the black-and white. Science makes life better. The arts make life worth living.

I was more leaning towards the 'it's BS because you can say whatever and get top grades' angle rather than it's bad because it's subjective. Expressing one's opinion is wonderful and all that, but expressing one's own opinion haphazardly without a semblence of a clue what one is saying and still getting top grades for it is a bit mystifying and dampens my outlook on English somewhat.

By all means be a 'person of the arts'. I'm not knocking that at all. But I just don't think English (covering literature especially) is a very credible subject.

 

[mk17]

commitment has two "t"s. For the love of god, if you're gonna be pedantic do it right!

Like this.

 

[semi-pro waster]

commitment has two "t"s. For the love of god, if you're gonna be pedantic do it right!

Like this.

Bobbins, touche. You knew what I meant and you might want to capitalise the first word of a sentence.

 

[mk17]

. now be fair, I did capitalise the first word of a sentence. Just not both.

 

[KNiVES]

. now be fair, I did capitalise the first word of a sentence. Just not both.

YE DIDNAE CAP'TALIZE THE N

 

[milkinc13]

we need english lesson's so we can learn to use the written launguage properly. but i still didn't really understand it

 

[mattpc]

why dont you get a real job and stop posting on these forums if that's your attitude? English is a great subject.

 

[Killerkebab]

You have a point - I hated having to analyse poetry, biggest load of crap ever! I'm pretty sure than when writing the poem, the poet didnt analyse each line to ensure that it meant something.....utter balls imo

I completely agree with that. I remember reading that some authors came out and said that the way that their works were analysed in english classes meant that people were finding meanings that just weren't there.

Saying that it is a very useful skill to have when doing a research based degree.

This is precisely why it is GOOD to have analysis in school. There may not have been that meaning in the first place, but that won't stop someone seeing a meaning anyway. It might not be important for a poem, but I guarantee you a journalist picks his words very, very carefully and a well taught mind can help you see a message for what it really is. Be this in your future life, job, research, a newspaper, or debate - anything. Communicating with people is such an ubiquitous part of our lives that any more study in it can only be a good thing.

Schools don't make you read poems so you can become a poetry expert, schools make you read poems so you can learn to analyse. You don't go to school as an apprenticeship for life and I wish people would stop thinking that everything they see, hear or learn at school has to aid them in their jobs in the future.