Summary
Japan’s English proficiency ranking dropped to 92nd out of 116 countries, the lowest ever recorded.
The decline is attributed to stagnant English proficiency among young people, particularly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Netherlands ranked first, followed by European countries, while the Philippines and Malaysia ranked 22nd and 26th, respectively.
I was reading the book by Chris Broad of the Travel Abroad YouTube about his experience teaching in Japan. You’re totally correct. It’s really a faux pas to correct a teacher as a foreigner teaching English. So the teacher would give say the wrong thing, and you’d just nod.
Not to mention, from Chris, the Japanese tests for English are really stupid. They’re teaching them with tests from the 80s, and using words that aren’t common in spoken language.
I’ve seen uni entrance exam tests and it’s definitely just there for the test – no one speaks the way they do in those. I was never a teacher, though, so I’m just going on what my friends say (my wife hated English class and never paid attention, so she doesn’t remember much).
To be fair, the JLPT also tends to include outdated Japanese, so there’s that as well.