Reading

I am always skeptical with all those English textbooks for our school children. Besides being a cash cow of the publishers (too bad none of them is listed company - another proof that they are really making money), there seems no purpose for their existence.

Clinical medicine could not be taught by a textbook of physiology, but by seeing how other physicians handle cases, and then work with cases by your own self – hopefully with some guidance. English is no exception - how can you learn a language by reading grammar textbooks (not to say they are local ones written by dyed-hair gangsters with possible expressive dysphasia) ?

Read good – and interesting – English books (or songs, movies); write and speak in English. There are Sherlock Holmes (my own prejudice, of course), Harry Porter, Mark Twain, J Tolkien, Charles Dickens, and many others. I cannot imagine a school child find Tom Sawyer not a portrait of his friends (if not himself), or stop in the middle of Devonshire without reading to the end and find out who kept the Hound of Baskerville.

PS. I was about to recommend Strunk and White if there needs a textbook for "grammar", but it remains an unnecessary addition. After all The Elements of Style was meant for university students.