English in grade school

English in grade school

From Kompas

I am perplexed and saddened by the English taught in grade school. I am a university student and have a cousin in grade five of an elementary school in Pondok Labu. She has been taught English since grade three.

One day she asked me to help her because she was facing an end-of-semester test the following day. I was taken aback seeing the material which included many tenses: present, past, present perfect, future, etc. The problem occurred with the present perfect tense. She could not distinguish between the present and the present perfect tense.

Even more dumbfounding was that the book contained only five pages for each tense, including the exercises.

How could she learn the grammar of a foreign language if the material is wanting both in quality and in quantity?

NIRMA MARINA LESTARI

Jakarta