LOS ANGELES ¨C The decision by Honda Motor Co. and other Japanese companies to make English their official corporate language is a belated response to the realities of the new global economy. The question now is whether schools in Japan will do their part to prepare students for a successful future.
To date the evidence is not encouraging, as English-proficiency scores from 480 randomly selected public high schools attest. But there is more to the issue than initially meets the eye. Foreign-language learners in any country will perform only as well as the instruction they receive.
It¡¯s here that widespread misunderstanding prevails. If the most important goal is to teach Japanese students how to speak the kind of everyday English used in the corporate world, then it¡¯s imperative that teachers provide them with frequent practice doing precisely that ¡ª followed by immediate feedback.
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