“English is my worst subject.”  True or False?

Whenever I tell people I’m an English teacher, they say “Uh oh… English was my worst subject in school.” Now what did they mean by this? These are people who are native speakers of English! So how could English have been their worst subject in school?

I put this, “Why was English your worst subject?”, into the search bar. One person said he didn’t like English because he was always asked to write his opinion of things and then told that he was wrong.

Have you ever had this experience?

In writing, we must present our ideas in a clear and orderly fashion. We must take ideas and support them with facts or real-life experience.  Sometimes when students write essays, we teachers are not telling our students that their opinions are wrong, but that they have not properly supported and developed their ideas.  At the same time,  much attention in writing classes is paid to the question: Is this a fact or an opinion? Some people confuse a fact with an opinion, but this can be remedied with proper training.

So if you are an ESL student or a native English speaker, in fact no matter what language you write in, your writing should reflect a logical flow of ideas that the readers can follow.   Learning to write clearly in this manner can be a really beautiful experience that can open up a whole new world to the writer.