Tense in reported speech

Hoa Thai wrote:

Hi Amy, I totally agree with you on your assessment. It has been very frustrating for me to deal with the problems that you’ve just talked about. In my country, in the distant past, teachers were trained well and I was fortunate enough to study under the great care of an excellent English teacher, who taught my friends and me many exceptions along with the rules. Nowadays, because English becomes necessary in our society, textbooks have been either translated from old sources or written by many people with limited knowledge and experience. Errors and outdated information have been copied and multiplied. In addition to that, thousands of poor college students with shallow English background become home-tutors and they cram test taking techniques to the next generation. You don’t pass, you don’t go to college; you don’t go to college, you might never make it in life. The message is loud and clear! With so much to absorb besides English, students end up study to pass rather than to learn. Teaching English nuances is appreciated by a few but creates confusion to the rest. And if teachers are not careful, they could be angrily criticized for helping flunking the kids! Teaching the ‘half-truth’ is so dangerous, but what is the solution? For me, I have yet to find a quick exit for our children. I hope I can find a condensed ESL textbook that answers to the kind of test questions that keep spreading the ‘half truth’. Am I dreaming!?

textbooks have been either translated from old sources or written by many people with limited knowledge and experience. Errors and outdated information have been copied and multiplied. In addition to that, thousands of poor college students with shallow English background become home-tutors and they cram test taking techniques to the next generation. You don’t pass, you don’t go to college; you don’t go to college, you might never make it in life. The message is loud and clear! 

With so much to absorb besides English, students end up study to pass rather than to learn. 

This is so true in many Asian developing countries. Even in Hong Kong which had been a British colony for a century before her sovereignty was returned to the mother land, the standard of English in Hong Kong school was considered below that of Singapore because many locally trained teachers were trained by sub-standard teachers before them. This translated to the dilution of quality of English. Even today, to pass the college entrance test, many high school graduates pay thousands for English tutors to get that extra edge which has promoted the growth of many tutoring schools and unqualified teacher who are not qualified to teach. Recognizing the problem, the Edcuation Authority began to increase funding to hire many English teachers from US, England and Australia in expectation to elevate the English level. I actually had communicated with someone who told me that he was an English tutor. But his English is not that I would call “up-to-par”.  This kind of “exception to the rule” may not be taught, or have been incorrectly passed on to students. To me, the past or present form of verb- to -be used in reported speech has to do often with situations in which they are used, rather than being dictated by hard rules. That is just my 2 cents.