.. …................ ^^^^^^
I think to myself. This year I began studying English anew, because I had entered a new class. We studied nearly everything. From the alphabet all the way through the hardest of tenses and particulars of BrE and AmE. So I can't help but wonder - why do I need all of this? Of course, I think my English has improved a bit since entereing that new class, but it still doesn't make sense.
First of all, the only thing you need is to be understood. You must learn how to express yourself. I think I can do that. If a Native American came up to me right now and asked me a few questions like "Where is the nearest grocery store?" or "How do I get to x street?", I think I would be able to answer. Pronunciation is very important, because just by hearing you say only a few simple sentences, a person (Native American or not, it doesn't matter) can automatically detect your level of comprehension of the English language. But for some reason, in my books, pronunciation is nearly forgotten. There may be a few texts to read for us to practise, but that's it. Way to leave out one of the most (if not THE most) important parts of English!
But the main problem is in the writing.
They are making things overly complicated. For example, one of the most common mistakes in the English grammar - your/you're. It's not hard to learn at all, I'm not complaining, but why are they enforcing the proper usage? I mean, if someone were to say something to me like "Your not going to make it on time.", I would still understand what that person meant. They give us the wrong idea that way. That it's almost "fatal" if we were to make such a mistake. But in reality, no one really cares. In fact, go on the Internet. 90% of the text content you see has at least a couple of grammar/spelling mistakes. But it's insignificant, if the information still got to you.
What else? Capitalization and punctuation. Who cares if a person decided to start the sentence with a lower-case letter and forgot to leave a full stop at the end. It's just insignificant! It may not be "proper", but again, no one cares, as long as they can understand you! But please note, this doesn't apply to every bit of punctuation, sometimes it can be vital and can bring a whole different meaning to your sentences. I'm speaking minor. And as you can see from my personal writing, I don't encourage such mistakes on purpose, you should aim for your best. The problem is how teachers tend to make "an elephant out of the fly", as we say in Bulgarian.
Lastly, let's put it to the test. You're writing a job application (a letter for a new job), in which you must describe your skills and why you think you would make a good employee. Well, unless you are applying for an English teacher job, I say you are allowed to make a few mistakes! What's more, a good boss wouldn't judge you for stupid things like that, he would rather take into consideration what experience you have (which is of course a lot more important).
Perfect English, perfect English, perfect English. Bullshit! How about "normal English" for "normal people" with people telling you it's OK to make mistakes, as long as you learn from them. I'd much rather study that, to be honest.
TLDR version: Perfect English is bullshit, we are allowed to make fucking mistakes! Also, my books suck.