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This afternoon, I opened my English text book for a quick glance before tomorrow\’s exam. There\’re essays and stories on the first pages. Okay, I like reading. I enjoy it. Having read all the texts, I proceeded to the next chapter, hoping to find another texts and voilà! I found lists of complex grammar patterns. Something like:

SUBJECT + VERB I + OBJECT
SUBJECT + HAVE/HAS + VERB III + OBJECT

No. I don’t think so. I’ve had enough hell of a time trying to memorise those verb patterns.

I just don’t understand. English is a language. Language is not something like chemistry or physics. You just can’t jot down patterns and formulae and expect people to comprehend and solve problems with them. My English book, I tell you, is full of formulae and patterns. Hell, I think. We aren’t learning Chemistry. We are learning a language, a complex and living system. Normal Indonesian people, I believe, do not speak a tongue right after memorising and practicing a bunch of verb patterns or formulae. Do you?

All right, formulae and patterns help us configuring or mind. Okay. That’s right. But the problem is Indonesian is not English. We, Indonesians, do not use various verb forms. Tenses and complex modal auxiliaries have never been acquainted with us. Ever. We have only a single verb form to express various actions happened in the past, present, and future. We do not differ the things that WERE, that ARE, and that haven’t YET come to pass. By translating those unfamiliar, complex systems of a living language into formulae and patterns, you’ll just bewilder many Indonesian schoolchildren. I tell you; even some friends of mine still cannot pronounce ‘th’ in ‘the’ and ‘than’ properly. It’s appalling because we’ve been taught English for more than eight years at schools. Teachers are too concerned with those patterns and formulae thus ignoring the vital part of language itself: pronunciation and figure of speeches. Remembering our eight years’ formal English education, it’s awful to see how a lot of Indonesian schoolchildren are still gaga in talking with a native English speaker.