Shame on… Whom?
October 2nd, 2010 | 
Author: 
Ryan* is 21 years old. He is already a graduate of Bachelor of Science course and he is presently taking up English Enhancement Program from me.
Because he got a very low grade in the assessment test, I asked him what the problem was. To this he answered that he doesn’t understand much of the English words. So, I gave him reading materials intended for sixth grader but still he got 10 incorrect answers out of 20. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that he couldn’t figure out what a ‘canoe’ is even when the sentence says ‘They used a canoe to cross the river’ (which surely gives an idea that a canoe is something like a boat).
I also found out that he is not familiar with the basic rules in grammar like plural forms and possessive nouns. It saddens me to realize that our schools let a student graduate without knowing the difference between girls and girl’s.
Is there really something wrong? Or I just have an UNREALISTICALLY high standard?
*not real name
Posted in teacher's journal
kim truly ryn has aproblem that why he needs your help.
I can't speak for where you are, but certainly in the UK, I feel education is in decline, in that it is concentrated on getting children ready for work, rather than a general education for education's sake. Hence, many of our graduates have these same deficiencies.
No, you are right in your assessment of our entire educational system. Although we pride ourselves as the only English speaking nation in this side of the world (except of course for India), our English literacy has gone down on such alarming proportion that other nations no longer look up to us with regards to English proficiency. We just have to look at all the blogs where grammar and correct sentence construction are more the exception than the rule. Thanks for the post. God bless you all always.
Oh…I can understand if you feel so disappointed, Kim…
He really needs your help!