I failed my English subject’s first quarter test during my freshman year in high school. Understandably, the transition from public education to private was more of personal difficulties rather than the gap in quality. At the time, the divide was not as wide as in today’s standards.
Frankly, back then, I had never heard of idiomatic expressions, similes, alliterations, hyperboles and all those highfaluting words. Maybe I did but they were so scarce in my personal vocabulary that whenever I hear of them, I cringed.
Then, there was poetry interpretation. Have you ever experienced doing the motions of an activity you are so bored about but forced to do? Staring at my teacher with total concentration, I looked like a devotee of lyrical compositions. In reality though, I had no inkling what she spoke about, explaining lines in poems as if performing an autopsy to an ancient corpse.
Writing essays appealed to me more. However, the routine was never a priority in my teacher’s lesson plan that my only best side contributed little to my grade.
Grammar was the last nail to the coffin, so to speak. My confusion was complete that I kept using inverted sentence form. I always translated the vernacular into English as it was spoken. The result was a bit better than ape talk.
Fortunately, my grades in other subjects saved the day. The only red ink in my card was overshadowed by blank inks of above average numbers.
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