Imagine the fuss if Japan's car industry was producing a million defective cars a year. But for some reason no one bothers much if Japan's English-education industry produces roughly that number of defective English speakers each year.
For much of this year, an Education Ministry-appointed committee has been working to "improve" guidelines for the teaching of English in the schools. Most members (including me) realized the need for improvements, including much more emphasis on the spoken language.
But in the final draft report prepared by the bureaucrats, our demands were watered down to little more than mild urgings. Japan's largely defective English teachers are urged to use more English in the classroom, for example. In the process, of course, they will ensure that at best yet another generation of students will learn stilted English with bad pronunciation.