Have you really had an English class?

Posted by on . 3 comments.

I’m looking for a new housemate right now and put up an ad on Craigslist.  I’ve been emailing back and forth with a few people and am pretty sure I’ll find someone by this weekend.  I’m trying not to discriminate based on grammar and spelling, but some of the responses I get are pretty terrible.  For example:

Your place like nice but looks to crowded for 2 more people and the room sees way to small.

I immediately remember being an English teacher in China and have to resist the urge to whip out my red pen when I read things like this.  Unfortunately, this person does not have the excuse of learning English late in life – he’s a native of the southwestern US and is actually attending university.  Unlike many people responding to the ad, however, he gets points for using both capitalization and punctuation.  Now I understand why my school makes it so hard to get out of intro English.

Comments

  1. Mike says:
    January 9, 2009 at 10:11 am

    I agree, but the system is broken in other ways, too.

    I was a photojournalist for five years, regularly max out the scale of standardized verbal skills tests without much effort, got an 800 on the verbal portion of my SAT and a 5 in AP English, and at most colleges, I’d still have to take English intro courses.*

    That makes no sense, either.

    *For people who think of this as bragging, so be it. Facts are stated for illustration of my case, because I really don’t care what you think about my test scores. (Sorry, feeling pugnacious today.)

    Reply
  2. sarcozona says:
    January 9, 2009 at 10:15 am

    Mike, I agree. I’m pretty angry that I can’t get out of my school’s intro English course – even after doing quite well in an honors English course at a much more prestigious university and having written several successful grant proposals.

    Reply
  3. Mike says:
    January 9, 2009 at 8:50 pm

    Yeah, one-size-fits-all schemes are rarely good for anyone at all. Perhaps the middle quintile derives some benefits, but I’m doubting even that.

    If we weren’t spending so damn much on the military, perhaps we could have something resembling a quality scholastic environment.

    Wait, no, we’d probably just give it to some rich bankers. Never mind. :-\

    Reply

What do you think?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.