English in Japan

Hello. Although I don't have a lot of contact with the Japanese students at KGU, I met and chatted with many of them at the beginning of the semester. Japanese students also organize events that exchange students can sign up for, and we do them together (I went to the instant ramen museum and to Iga, for example). There were a few Japanese students in all of my classes (except for the Japanese language classes of course) and the RAs in seminar houses are Japanese. There are a few more Japanese students living in each dorm, aside from the RAs. My roommate is Japanese. I had a Japanese speaking partner and a home visit family. Still, I can't say I've made any long-lasting Japanese friends. I guess that's a shame, but I'll try harder to join a club or a circle next semester.

What I'm getting to is this: I've met many Japanese students here at this foreign language university, and I can only think of two who I thought excelled in English. They had fantastic speaking skills and we could easily communicate in English. That's not to say that everyone else sucks, they don't, but I haven't met many Japanese people here who can communicate comfortably in English. Many people's English seems limited. I suppose that can be good for those of us who are learning Japanese.
I'm not sure how I can say this and convey it clearly... I think many Japanese people's English skills are a bit lacking. Especially compared to the Korean college students I've met. At KU I met dozens of Koreans who could communicate clearly in English. I also met several Korean people who had spent part of their childhoods living abroad, either in the U.S. or elsewhere. Some people didn't have perfect English skills but I thought they had a perfect American English accent. That's not to say that all Koreans are good at English. It's just that I've met numerous Korean people in their 20s who learned English as a second language and are fluent in it. They're not all necessarily perfect but they can certainly get by. Maybe some of the Japanese students I've met are lacking confidence, but almost everyone I met here isn't that good at talking in English. That's not to say that all Japanese people are terrible at English. I've met numerous Japanese people in my life who are perfectly fluent. But when comparing my study abroad in South Korea to the one in Japan, I by far knew more people with higher English skills in S. Korea. This also doesn't mean that everyone in Korea speaks English. I met plenty of Korean people who aren't able to communicate in English.

I didn't create this post to bash people's English skills. I don't mean to hate on anyone. I'm trying to explain one of my observations after studying abroad in two different countries.
I'm bringing this up because I just saw this: Englisch sprechen lernen
According to that article:

• Japan wants it students to speak better English so they're going to change the school system and make classes more intensive
• Japanese students regularly do poorly on the TOEFL (an exam created to measure English language proficiency)
• in 2007, there were TOEFL scores from a total of 161 countries. Japan ranked low, on place 136. Even North Korea had a better ranking, at 111. China placed 99 and South Korea was 72.

This also reminded me of a post one of my Japanese friends made on Facebook last month:

Note: katakana is one of the two Japanese syllabaries which is normally used for foreign words or loan words, which are given Japanese pronunciation. For example, "print club" should be written in katakana because it's not from Japanese, so it's プリントクラブ in katakana, which is romanized as "purinto kurabu". The English word "concert" turns into コンサート, "konsaato". The German word "Arbeit" turns into "arubaito". Katakana takes foreign words and writes them in Japanese.

She was born and raised in Japan, and she says that students who have good speaking skills in English are bullied by other students.

Her comments on the thread:

I think anyone would agree that students who excel shouldn't be bullied. In fact, no one should be bullied by anyone ever.

I think the general English skill level differences between students in South Korea and students in Japan are due to cultural differences. South Korea is known for an intense school system and a culture of studying. Studying is rewarded. High school students, particularly those in their last year, are said to study for 16 hours each day. In a competitive country where there is one ideal, high English test scores can get you ahead. I read in a book that there are middle aged workers who need good English test scores in order to be considered for promotion, despite the job having nothing to do with foreign language or any need for English. There are many international students at my university in the U.S. Out of those, the country that is represented the most is South Korea. After that is China. That's why I often hear Korean spoken on campus.

I don't think it's that good for a foreign language to be forced on people (read The bigger picture).

I don't think that Japan's low English scores is a terrible thing. There are advantages to having a better command of such a global language, but for most people that's not necessary. It would be good for those who want to master English to have resources available to do so.