# English class... why?



## CAT13 (Sep 11, 2008)

first note: I don't care if anyone thinks that my opinion on this is stupid, so just don't complain about it

So, back to what I was going to say. 
I walk into English class every day and I just keep on learning (I guess you would call it) about stuff that I find that I will probably never... EVER... use in my life after school. I can see why there is English (or Language Arts or whatever) in the first six or seven grades, but it seems like it is just really redundant now. My teachers keep teaching me how to identify gerunds and infinitives and stuff like that over and over. And I really don't know why.
Can someone tell me why it is a mandatory class?

second note: To anyone who is an English major or something like that, don't get all offended and yell at me


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## Brett (Sep 11, 2008)

My sister's boyfriend is an English major. He's worried he might not find a job, since the only English-based jobs available are English teachers P).

Yeah, I remember before this year (11th grade) English being pretty useless. So far I've been actually learning a lot about writing (By the end of the year she expects us to write like college juniors o_o)


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## Lotsofsloths (Sep 11, 2008)

Yea writing is good, learn how to write, and make it a mandatory class. But learning how to identify different words really doesn't help that much. While learning how to write and sway someones thoughts away or towards something can be very valuable.


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## hawkmp4 (Sep 11, 2008)

I actually find that the AP history courses I've taken have improved my writing and reading skills way more than English class has. I haven't learned anything new in English since sixth grade or so, and I'm a high school senior now.


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## Brett (Sep 11, 2008)

Were you in AP English classes? There's more to learning to write beyond just masses of essays in AP Social Studies classes (All they did for me last year was make me hate world history, and essays )


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## hawkmp4 (Sep 11, 2008)

Actually, no, I'm not in AP English, though I was in advanced/accelerated/enriched/whatever-you-want-to-call-it English until this year. Now I'm in a debate class and a public speaking class


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## Rubixcubematt (Sep 11, 2008)

i havent learnt anything in english all year. i have the worst/best teacher ever. she's extreamly bad because she always yells at us and tells us that we have something due in when she hasn't told us. the good thing is that she gives us assingments and does nothing about them. she also gave basicaly everyone exelents on work that basicaly everyone didn't do . she also doesn't actualy teach, she gives us work sheets and expects us to do it without any help lol


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## DAE_JA_VOO (Sep 11, 2008)

I'm a 4th year IT student, about to finish CCNA. I WISH I still had English.

Being able to speak the language is fine, but being able to speak and write it WELL is amazing. 

Trust me, if you could speak and write the language as if you had an English Major, you'd love it  I'm fortunate in that i was raised in an English environment, a GOOD English environment, and as such, I was forced into very good use of the language from the start. Now, I can speak and write it very well (I write for a magazine in my spare time), and being able to speak and write it like this is really wonderful.


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## Bryan (Sep 11, 2008)

Rubixcubematt said:


> i havent learnt anything in english all year. i have the worst/best teacher ever. she's extreamly bad because she always yells at us and tells us that we have something due in when she hasn't told us. the good thing is that she gives us assingments and does nothing about them. she also gave basicaly everyone exelents on work that basicaly everyone didn't do . she also doesn't actualy teach, she gives us work sheets and expects us to do it without any help lol



And as a results, you write like crap. Seriously, you're the reason the OP has to get hammered over and over again with the basics, because some people just don't learn. In my sophomore year of college, we had to proofread another person's paper. I had to actually explain to the other person problems like "This sentence doesn't have a verb", and "You didn't capitalize the word 'I'". And this was typed up. You have to actually work very hard to not capitalize the word "I".


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## pcharles93 (Sep 11, 2008)

Bryan said:


> Rubixcubematt said:
> 
> 
> > i havent learnt anything in english all year. i have the worst/best teacher ever. she's extreamly bad because she always yells at us and tells us that we have something due in when she hasn't told us. the good thing is that she gives us assingments and does nothing about them. she also gave basicaly everyone exelents on work that basicaly everyone didn't do . she also doesn't actualy teach, she gives us work sheets and expects us to do it without any help lol
> ...



No no no, you don't get it. He's writing like that because it isn't being counted for a grade. In school, he's like a modern Shakespeare. Trust me, there are a lot of people who write like a 3 year old, because they don't have a test on it.


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## CAT13 (Sep 11, 2008)

I write better here than at school. At school I am like a neanderthal. jk. But I am really bad at writing essays.


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## hawkmp4 (Sep 11, 2008)

Actually, now that I think about it, the single most important thing for my study of the English language was taking Spanish.
Yeah, I know, sounds stupid. But I think learning a second language forces you to really stop and think and figure out what you're truly trying to tell someone.


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## fanwuq (Sep 12, 2008)

My English class sucked so badly last year. I had to re-read literature I read years before.

But this year, it is awesome. It's not like an usual English class at all. It's a philosophy class.

I find being forced to study a foreign language by the curriculum is extremely pointless. I studied francais for 4 years and basically forgot everything. I don't think I'll ever go to France anyway. The only good use of it is perhaps asking cubing advice from the fast French cubers, but I was never good enough to do that anyway.


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## qqwref (Sep 12, 2008)

English is an interesting idea, but it's taught all wrong in the higher grades. Instead of focusing on writing well (which is what a few of my teachers did and which has been extremely helpful for me), a lot of teachers basically teach a "literary analysis" class, which is completely useless for anyone who isn't pursuing an English major. It can be useful to know what a book is about, but since very few people read or talk about books outside of school, and it has no applications to jobs, it's a pretty useless skill, one that interested students should look into but that uninterested ones have no reason to be forced to learn. If we took all of the time teaching literary analysis and spent it teaching good writing techniques and English grammar, I'm sure students would come out of High School with much better writing.


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## Bryan (Sep 12, 2008)

pcharles93 said:


> No no no, you don't get it. He's writing like that because it isn't being counted for a grade. In school, he's like a modern Shakespeare. Trust me, there are a lot of people who write like a 3 year old, because they don't have a test on it.



If you wrote decently all the time, then the amount of work to write differently between graded and non-graded is minimal. It's like saying that you're just going to go around in a motorized wheelchair because you're not in gym class. And then you try to figure out why it's so difficult to walk up steps. It's because you've been lazy so much, you have to put in a ton of effort.

And even though you're not being graded, you do get judged by your writing.

I'm guessing the people that use your logic are the same people that end up quitting college, and their friends say, "Yeah, he was really smart and stuff, he just didn't go to class because it wasn't a challenge." Wrong! If you were smart, you'd realize that going to class was important. If you were smart, you could've passed the tests. But you're not. You're really just setting yourself for failing in the future.


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## pcharles93 (Sep 12, 2008)

Bryan said:


> pcharles93 said:
> 
> 
> > No no no, you don't get it. He's writing like that because it isn't being counted for a grade. In school, he's like a modern Shakespeare. Trust me, there are a lot of people who write like a 3 year old, because they don't have a test on it.
> ...



You realize that post was just one big piece of sarcasm? You know how a newcomer types without giving any thought to spelling or grammar? Usually someone asks why they type like a monkey and they respond with "This is a forum, not an English lesson"


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## brunson (Sep 12, 2008)

pcharles93, I thought your original post was hilarious. Some people here have actually taken English class, graduated from college and understand intellectual humor. Take heart. ;-)


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## EmersonHerrmann (Sep 12, 2008)

I'm in 8th grade and I find truth in your opinion...They've taught me basically the same thing for all 3 of my middle school years and I really don't like things that are repetitive. I am really lazy, and doing all this english homework (note the keyword - work) which I forget in about 5 minutes unless I NEED recall it. I figure, why do I do all of this work, which I don't need, don't get payed for, and am forced to do...it's just wrong...


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## pcharles93 (Sep 12, 2008)

EmersonHerrmann said:


> I'm in 8th grade and I find truth in your opinion...They've taught me basically the same thing for all 3 of my middle school years and I really don't like things that are repetitive. I am really lazy, and doing all this english homework (note the keyword - work) which I forget in about 5 minutes unless I NEED recall it. I figure, why do I do all of this work, which I don't need, don't get payed for, and am forced to do...it's just wrong...




You should really blame the slackers in your English classes. The only reason people need to relearn all this grammar and analyses crap over and over is because they forget over the summer. This will probably be my 4th year learning about clauses and analyzing obscure short stories. Last year I was in Honors, but I dropped it because I really don't want to do the essays. So now, I'm relearning 8th grade stuff in 10th grade.


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## CAT13 (Sep 12, 2008)

last year I was in normal English, this year I'm in honors English (and it if freaken hard), to I'm thinking next year I will go back to regular English... But regular English is so easy... I would rather have the easy class


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## pcharles93 (Sep 12, 2008)

CAT13 said:


> last year I was in normal English, this year I'm in honors English (and it if freaken hard), to I'm thinking next year I will go back to regular English... But regular English is so easy... I would rather have the easy class



That's not the best idea. In Lakota, there is a huge margin between Honors and regular English. If one of each class swapped curriculum for just one day, the Honors students in reg classes would be beating their heads against the desk because of how easy it is. The reg class in Honors would be out cold drooling all over the desk. It's only been a week and a half, but I've noticed a ton of weird stuff about my English teacher. She talks really slow, teaches really slow, and she even moves slowly. I feel so out of place.


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## Dene (Sep 12, 2008)

I wish we had a better english curriculum here. Basically, we watch a movie, read a book, and read a Shakespeare play, and write essays on what the teacher thinks about them. As a result I have very poor english and have had to teach myself to write (I also had to teach myself mathematics. Stupid New Zealand).


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## pcharles93 (Sep 12, 2008)

Dene said:


> I wish we had a better english curriculum here. Basically, we watch a movie, read a book, and read a Shakespeare play, and write essays on what the teacher thinks about them. As a result I have very poor english and have had to teach myself to write (I also had to teach myself mathematics. Stupid New Zealand).



I wish I had a better school system. They only allow you to work 1 year ahead of everyone else maximum for people graduating in 2011 and earlier. Unlucky me is stuck right at that border. History just plain sucks. I always get the worst history teacher who teaches everything by rote. But this year is going to be conceptual lessons instead of "Here's an event and its date. Memorize it. There'll be a test in a week." Science is fun. Yay Chemistry. And as I said earlier, English is really repetitive.


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## blah (Sep 12, 2008)

That's why classes are there - for you to sleep through, so you'd have enough energy to do whatever you want to do and learn whatever you want to learn at home.

Face it, almost nothing taught in school is gonna be remotely useful in real life, at least that's how it is in my education system in this hellhole. Even if it is gonna be useful, it's gonna be _passively_ useful at best, rarely ever _actively_ useful, i.e. it's _good to know_ how to solve quadratic equations _in case_ you encounter one in real life, but you're never gonna _need_ it. In fact, anything beyond primary school (Grade 6?) Math is pretty much useful but non-applicable in real life. Ask your mom when was the last time she did any Math other than add, subtract, multiply or divide? All that said, Math is still my favorite (and best) subject, and I wanna major in Math in college 

You just go to school to find out about anions and cations and that DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid (didn't look that up ) and who the 38th President is and India is the world's largest textiles exporter and how to write a 500-word descriptive essay about a boring cup sitting on a boring table (at least this is all how it is in my education system). Wait why am I saying all this? Come to think of it, cubing is even less practical than anything we learn in school  (except maybe unhooking bras? But that's just Leyan Lo )


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## pcharles93 (Sep 12, 2008)

^^ That thing about cubing may be true, but at least it's impressive. At least from my personal experience it is. No one is ever impressed at my amazing mathematical prowess. It's always "Oh wow, that's pretty cool how you figured that out so fast. Oh wait, nvm. You're Asian, it's what you're born to do." I get too much of that.


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## blah (Sep 12, 2008)

Dumb Americans and their dumb stereotypes.

PS: Before anyone says anything, this was directed to the dumb Americans who make the dumb stereotypes, not to all the other Americans who don't stereotype  (Hope the smiley helps.)


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## darkzelkova (Sep 12, 2008)

Yeah I really don't like literary analysis. I think that there should be less of this stuff that you really WON'T be using after school, and more computer and life skills classes. It would make sense.


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## Dene (Sep 12, 2008)

blah said:


> Dumb Americans and their dumb stereotypes.
> 
> PS: Before anyone says anything, this was directed to the dumb Americans who make the dumb stereotypes, *not to all the other Americans who don't stereotype*  (Hope the smiley helps.)



Why not?
>.<


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## Leviticus (Sep 12, 2008)

fanwuq said:


> My English class sucked so badly last year. I had to re-read literature I read years before.
> 
> But this year, it is awesome. It's not like an usual English class at all. It's a philosophy class.




Reminds me of a book i read in English-"Tuesdays with Morrie".

anyway, English is ok. I just hate oral presentations. Got one this Monday


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## fanwuq (Sep 12, 2008)

I think the class mostly depends on the teacher, not school system. Energetic young people generally make the best teachers (4th, 5th, 8th, 11th). 70 year old monotone old guy is not good (10th grade0. 60 year old diabetic old lady who complains about insulin injections rather than teaching the class is not good (9th grade). Other not so old people are Ok, but not amazing.


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## EmersonHerrmann (Sep 12, 2008)

> You should really blame the slackers in your English classes. The only reason people need to relearn all this grammar and analyses crap over and over is because they forget over the summer. This will probably be my 4th year learning about clauses and analyzing obscure short stories. Last year I was in Honors, but I dropped it because I really don't want to do the essays. So now, I'm relearning 8th grade stuff in 10th grade.



I've been in honors for this entire time, I don't wanna drop out because all my friends are in this class. And because I'm in honors they make us do like twice as much work as the other classes.


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## Vulosity (Sep 12, 2008)

All I've ever done in English class is:
-The teacher gives you a vocabulary list
-I define the list
-I get a test on the list


And it's the same every year from 1st grade to 8th( where I'm now)

P.S. My science teacher is extremely sarcastic and I'm in Honors Geometry.
I think that the only subjects that should be obligated are Math and Science.
The rest are junk.


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## fanwuq (Sep 12, 2008)

I think no classes should be obligated if you can pass a basic test on the subject.


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## CAT13 (Sep 13, 2008)

I want to see how I would I would do in the final exams, and then test how well I will do at the end of the year to see how much I learned. I think that most improvement would be in math and science. So I think that those two classes should be longest, no? And then shorten all of the other stupid classes like history and English.


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## blindfold cube (Sep 13, 2008)

I find english class rather useless. At my school all we ever do is just read books, go over questions about the book we've read and get an essay once in a while. If there is anything important to learn in english class, it is the skill to learn how to write an essay. That's it. I find everything else in english pointless because I don't even care about english. I'm trying to shoot to be an engineer so what I HAVE to be strong in is math and science. That's just my particular goal, though. Someone shooting to be an english major would say science and math are useless. They would say stuff like "Whats the point to find what x equals when y is 0". I guess what I'm trying to say is that it is your own view on what you find useful.


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## ExoCorsair (Sep 13, 2008)

I've yet to take an English class that didn't suck. I mean, I've had good teachers in the past, but the curricula were awful.

As if memorizing vocabulary lists helped one's vocabulary. My roommate is an English major and he also thinks that high school English is taught completely wrongly.

Even in college I'm required to take a 'freshman composition' course (basically a course on rhetoric). However, unlike the high school courses, this one is taught so that we learn how to structure arguments for varying audiences. Therefore, it seems that I'm actually going to 'learn' something this year.

I've honestly learned more English from studying (I use this word loosely) for the SATs and reading literature than from my English classes in high school, and I've taken all 'honors' courses. 5 paragraph essay? Psh, even my college professor says I'll never have to write one again.

Also, I personally think that the reason why we are required to take these stupid courses in high school is because of the government and their lack of will to provide the more intellectual students courses appropriate for them (zomg it's not equal!).

<end rant-that-lacks-transitions>


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## hawkmp4 (Sep 13, 2008)

ExoCorsair said:


> <end rant-that-lacks-transitions>


Of all of the grammar atrocities committed in this forum, your lack of transitions is minor xD


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## HelloiamChow (Sep 14, 2008)

I'm a senior in high school(finally) taking IB English IV.

4 years of IB English and I'll that I've learned is that I get the best naps in English class.


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## Swordsman Kirby (Sep 15, 2008)

HelloiamChow said:


> I'm a senior in high school(finally) taking IB English IV.
> 
> 4 years of IB English and I'll that I've learned is that I get the best naps in English class.



How can you have four years of IB? Did you fall back TWICE?


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## HelloiamChow (Sep 17, 2008)

Bleh, they call 9th and 10th English IB English too. So by the time I hit senior year on the school catalog it's IB English IV. At my highschool, all 4 years are called "IB", but yeah, I know only junior and senior year is real IB. 

I'm tired of high school in general.


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## Brian Le (Sep 17, 2008)

CAT13 said:


> last year I was in normal English, this year I'm in honors English (and it if freaken hard), to I'm thinking next year I will go back to regular English... But regular English is so easy... I would rather have the easy class



English honors isn't hard...

Personally, I'm taking an AP English Class right now. I'm taking it for personal reasons.

But I feel that English is a good course because it teaches how to write properly, and is the most applied skill for the rest of one's life. Without a language, how can people communicate? 

P.S. I also love analyzing literature ;D


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## qqwref (Sep 20, 2008)

Brian Le said:


> Without a language, how can people communicate?



I think in the past they used to have people who couldn't afford formal education, but as I recall they typically managed to learn a language anyway (shock! awe!). But isn't well over 50% of the information in a human conversation conveyed through body language anyway?


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