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What I would have liked to have learned in English classes at school:

  • Grammar.
  • The history of how the language evolved from one with a rich conjugation and case system into the vastly structurally simpler one we have now.
  • Points of convergence and divergence with other languages, closely related or not. How did that happen?
  • How to speak and write beautifully and precisely with rhetorical flourishes if needed

What I actually learned in English classes at school:

  • Thomas Hardy really hated women.

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in reply to Sarah Brown

Ian Douglas Scott
Ian Douglas Scott
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I don't think universities generally require English majors to take a single linguistics class, which just seems wild.
in reply to Sarah Brown

Nikkileah
Nikkileah
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what I learned in English: that I read quicker than pretty much everyone. And that a lot of the "must teach" stuff was boring AF
in reply to Nikkileah

Kincaid
Kincaid
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@Nikkileah book n beer group looked at me like I was a Martian when I said I started the 300 pager on Sunday for the Thursday group... it's only 5 hours reading!
@Nikkileah
in reply to Sarah Brown

Ozzy
Ozzy
• •
German classes in Germany don't have any of the latter three items, either, it's just spelling and grammar, grammar, grammar. So much grammar.
On top of that, once you're required to write essays, you aren't actually taught how to do it or given any examples of one looks like (IIRC) which probably explains why I've always been bad at them.
in reply to Ozzy

James Baillie
James Baillie
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@karohemd Can second the latter point as someone who's had to teach German & Austrian students at university level, the idea school gives them of what constitutes an "essay" ends up requiring some remedial teaching.
@Ozzy
in reply to James Baillie

Alexandra Lanes
Alexandra Lanes
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@James Baillie @Ozzy The OU is my first academic institution to attempt to teach me how to write an essay. School seemed concerned that it had five paragraphs but didn’t care much beyond that. And Cambridge just assumed you either already had every academic skill required or would figure it out.
@Ozzy @James Baillie
in reply to Alexandra Lanes

Alisdair Calder McGregor
Alisdair Calder McGregor
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@ajlanes @karohemd @JubalBarca OU definitely has its faults, but the fact that it is bringing together *vastly* different background skill levels does make it have a focus on making sure everyone has the basics right first
@Ozzy @Alexandra Lanes @James Baillie
in reply to Sarah Brown

simon gray
simon gray
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When I was at school English language lessons were firmly separated from English Literature, and it wasn’t until English language A Level (which I didn’t do) that you got the really interesting linguistics stuff. It was always a running joke at the time that in 11–16 education one learned most of one’s proper English grammar from doing foreign languages.
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