Voodoo English

I asked our ever-reliable helper to check my test papers instead. I dunno how teachers beat their deadlines, but I sure still have a lot to learn from them. My wallet's getting skinnier lately; I've been spending a lot on food and lasang, and today, I had to dole out P300 for the helper's paid helping hands. I'm starting to suspect I'm not getting any richer. And the long list of things to worry is only getting longer! I noticed several students failed the departmentalized midterm test in English. I knew this would happen! I couldn't even answer the sequencing test right myself. But no one's listening to me. What does Henry know about English? Hahaii...

Sometimes I think teachers must do more to help students get rid of their fossilized grammar defects. This takes a more personal, intimate, hands-on approach. I believe writing classes should be about writing. And it's our business to teach them not just the theories and principles but also the actual execution of writing skills. There are a lot of things I never learned in college. They never taught it to us. And this cycle has to end. Students must be compelled to make a verb follow its subject the way a car must yield to a pedestrian. Run-ons and fragments should be fixed, wrong spelling rectified, missing punctuations installed. I am tired of reading long and lifeless essays about life. It is death that looms over the many papers I've been scouring lately. And if we can't change this trend among our students, if we are unable to exorcise their voodoo writing style, we have no business in the Languages Department.