I can see your point there EQ. Of course grammar was part of learning English some years back.

However how is their math, physics & chemistry EQ. With there being only so many hours in a day, often languages & sciences are an either or alternative in schools, & I know which will be of more use to most.

Looking at my kids & their school mates, now 5 to 10 years out of school, I can see a definite pattern. Those who took the science route are now almost exclusively solid successful members of society.

Those who followed the literary, arty path, apart from a few who found their way into the bureaucracy, are the ones floating along, requiring constant bailing out from the mistakes they make.

I'm not all that impressed with rounded citizens, who can't earn a living.

EQ, it seems to me that learning a second and third language is a long path to improving one’s grammar.

And I can’t quite see how that end is actually achieved by doing that.

Wouldn’t it have been a whole lot more straightforward to have done ‘advanced’ English, in which one’s grammar is perfected and the root meanings of words, many being of Latin origin, are explored?

*I'm not all that impressed with rounded citizens, who can't earn a living.*

Well that is exactly what it should be about, Hasbeen. Some time ago
I did a delivery of 99kg of seafood to a wholesaler and the 18 year
old office girl, had to do the paperwork. The price was 8$. She
was about to get her calculator out to work it out, when I mentioned
792$. She looked at me in sheer amazement and asked how I had
done that. Those are the sorts of kids that we are educating.
Half of them battle to read a book at the best of times, yet we try
and force Jane Eyre and similar nonsense down their throats. No
wonder kids bail out of school as early as possible and go and
flip burgers.

So many of our academics live in their own little world, unable to
understand life from other perspectives than their own. Now they
want to force some of these kids to spend huge amounts of time
learning languages. I can tell you, I speak fluent German and some
French and in Australia, I never use them.

Leave learning languages to those with an interest and aptitude for
learning languages. Trying to force kids to learn stuff that simply
does not interest them, is a dismal failure.

I made them do the hardest maths they could manage, (one did three unit and the other two) and I told them maths for society (or what ever it was called) was for losers. What really irritated me is the time they wasted on so-called aboriginal culture when they should have been doing history and geography. Four of the keys to success in life is being able to read, write, count and debate and that is what I tried to ensure they achieved.

I sure won't argue with you there, EQ.

There is far too much politically correct rubbish in schools. Unfortunately most school teachers have never left school, so have no idea of the real world. That's where all this saving the little dears from real competition, & the pain of ever actually loosing comes from. They have gone from school to uni to school, & never faced the competition of applying for a simple job themselves.

Add to that the academics & ex school teachers setting the agenda for education, & we have a system failing to prepare our kids for the real world.

English used to be about knowing what a participle, pronoun or a verb was, & what it was for. That required testing, & marks for results which could even compare kids knowledge, something that must not enter into todays schools.

Of course it would also require teachers to understand this stuff, probably a major reason for it's demise.