Despite unanimous agreement about the importance of learning English, Japan and the United States still harbor a misunderstanding about how to teach the subject. The result is continuing disappointment over the failure of schools to meet government targets in either country.
A survey of some 90,000 students at 500 high schools and 60,000 students at 600 junior high schools in Japan serves as evidence. It found that only about 10 to 30 percent of fourth-year high school students were proficient in reading, writing, listening and speaking English, even though they were the first generation to be taught in these areas solely in English.
Schools in the U.S. are also struggling to teach English. But students there are not as homogeneous. They are part of a foreign population that has dramatically increased from 10 million in 1970 to more than 42 million today. Half of these newcomers have Hispanic origins. Although new immigrants are learning English faster than previous newcomers, they still do not qualify as proficient.