It's time to reform training systems for language teachers and consider comprehensive language education that covers both academic and practical requirements.

Language education? Whenever I am in Japan, being Canadian, the little English being spoken there sounds very much like 18th century Old English from England. There is little relation to the English we actually speak in North America. Japanese English as taught in schools can be very difficult to understand. My wife is Japanese and the change from Japanese taught English to English English is on going and can be very trying for her. When she says somethings in Japanese English I have no idea what she is talking about and after we figure out what she is trying to say and I repeat her comments in our English, then she changes her words to something more in line with her thoughts and then I can understand her.

There is no practicality to the English currently being studies to death by the poor kids over there.

There is no practicality to the English currently being studies to death by the poor kids over there.

Hyperbole.

Perhaps you could give some examples of the incomprehensible English which is taught. I find the texts to be just fine. Lots have pairwork activities, but the "poor" kids just simply won't try to do them. If they did, they could develop a basic competency on which to build from.

In Japan, the foreign language education is not good at all, of course the books are ok because they are foreign books in their majority. But, sometimes the teachers are not well prepared to teach the contents. In the case of japanese english teachers, few of them they went abroad to develop the language deeply. Also, the "katakana" english that they teach is not even close to the normal pronunciation (even there is a ad who show this "Wonderland)". Also, the students don't give the necessary importance to the language, because they are not interested at all into learn english, only they want to finish the university, and work in Japan. In addition of these problems, the japanese society only gives the chance to teach english to the so called "native" speakers, even if they don't have the necessary education level to do it.

Conclusion: Japanese society has a wrong idea about how to teach a foreign language, is not only the matter of know how to talk is also the matter to know and understand the language.

A fierce adherence to monolingualism by a majority of people is something I find to be similar between Japan and the USA. It is almost as if an understanding of how other people think would threaten one's own perception of self and country. In that sense, there is a kind of narrow-mindedness that many people want to maintain.

It is that approach on the part of many people that, I believe, prevents them from taking the steps needed to master another language. Reforming the training system alone won't achieve very much until the latent cultural aspects are also taken into consideration.