What's the best way to learn good english?

As I was clearing out my bedroom recently, I came across a few old and very dusty notebooks. On opening them, they turned out to be my Std X English notebooks. All of them were filled with a large number of seemingly pointless letters. Basically there were letters addressed to newspaper editors complaining about the lack of proper and clean water supply, the irregular power supply, potholes in the road, traffic issues, complaints against late night revelers, lack of sufficient interaction between people and the government, the nuisance of stray dogs and other such creative topics. Just made me wonder why on earth do we learn to write such letters, since nobody is actually going to write them in real life, unless of course you are 80 years old and have nothing to do. Can't students spend time reading some good literature which will definitely improve their language and ensure that they have fun as well? Or is it compulsory for schools to make the subject as boring as possible and remove from it the tiniest amount of fun that the student might derive from studying it? My father studied in a convent school as well, and he keeps telling me how their Headmaster - a priest called Father McGrath (no known relation with Glen, this guy was Irish) - made their subject a lot more interesting by making them read a lot of stuff outside of standard prescribed textbooks. As a result of this my father developed a great love for the language, which can still be seen today. Even today, forty years after he left school, he occasionally recalls a poem that he had read when in school and though he doesn't remember the words too well, he remembers the theme of the poem and it's background. Now that clearly shows how dedicated a student he was. In comparison, I don't think any of todays school kids will be able to recall anything like that forty years on. In fact, I am pretty sure that if you mention reading stuff beyond the textbooks, they will argue with you saying that they do so, and promptly point to the nearest copy of 'Navneet's Digest'.

Other than that I also noticed something very peculiar. I had used a lot of phrases and idioms needlessly. I never did anything quietly, I always did it without a word. Just as I was always 'as cool as a cucumber' whenever I found myself 'in a pickle'. But even back then, I didn't like the idea of using such superfluous phrases. I always wanted to concentrate on writing something meaningful, something interesting and something which is only as long as it should be. But my teachers 'were aghast' when they heard of this and immediately asked me to 'mend my erroneous ways'. According to them, writing was all about using fancy words and phrases; comprehensibility and precision were qualities to be abhorred and not worshipped. That was something I absolutely hated to do, but as my notebooks show, I finally gave up and submitted to their diktat.

Even today I don't really understand the need of using fancy language while writing. It's all right if you use words which may be unfamiliar but nevertheless are precise and contextually important. But if you start using fancy words just for the heck of it, you are only limiting the number of people who can understand your writings and that is definitely undesirable. But that of course, is just my opinion.

Finally, before ending, I'd like to mention one last thing that I noticed from my old notebooks. The stuff I wrote was pretty bad. Though I never made any grammatical errors or spelling mistakes, most of my writing was basically chaotic, unorganised and without any purpose. So it seems that my writing skills have improved over the years, the credit of which, at least in part, goes to this blog. So expect more of such long and involved posts in the future.