Some readers' responses to letters published in this column on July 10 ("Readers lament the ever-shrinking eikaiwa salary") regarding Patrick Budmar's July 3 Zeit Gist article, "The curious case of the eroding eikaiwa salary":
I agree with much of what was written in Patrick Budmar's article — except for the last part.
A theory is put forward that deteriorating pay and conditions for native-speaker English teachers is a cause of declining language education standards in Japan. I do not believe that language education standards in Japan are declining. They are rising continually as the ability of Japanese English teachers continues to rise. However, this improvement is very slow due to a number of problems in language education policy — one of which is wasting huge amounts of money on hiring native English teachers to work in Japanese schools.