Conundrum

I'm in the midst of a small moral quandary.  I just finished grading my students mid-term exams and I would say that about 75% of them failed. Like, got F's.  And many of those who passed skated by with barely a D+.  

I tried to be liberal with giving points but I could not allow myself to give a student full credit if they wrote their affirmative response to a question as "Yas," especially since this is meant to be their 3rd year studying English at the University level.  

The students do not know present tense verbs, pronouns, or even how to say a phrase as simple and common as "Nice to meet you." (many people wrote "nice to meeting you" on the exam.) 

While some of the faux pas I saw were charming, one student wrote "Beyonce" every single time the exam called for the word "fiance," mostly the exam results have discouraged me.  The University passes students through courses even though the students have learned nothing.  This is where I find myself now.  I have a classroom full of 3rd year English students who do not know how to say "yes." I have a text book I am meant to teach them from but they can't even understand the title page.  

The University certainly wants all of my students to pass but I don't know how I am going to do that.  I can't allow someone who is supposed to be an English major graduate from University writing sentences like, "her is a good friend." But if I fail them I know there will be a price to pay.  I think I need to abandon every expectation the University has laid out for me and just teach them the most basic of things.  Present vs. Past tenses, pronouns, simple greetings.  

I would like to scorn the person who taught the entire country of Thailand that "singasong" is a word.  (almost all of the exams I received had the sentence, "I like to singasong.")  I would also like to scorn the person who told the Thai people that "every time" means "a lot." Even the other Ajarns say that.  

I'm not sure how to make these kids care but I'm going to try.  This week we will do singular vs. plural.  No one should be saying, "I have two sister."  This week we will also be talking about the difference between "single" and "singer" because right now to my students those two words are interchangeable.