世論 What Japan Thinks

This survey from goo Ranking looks at what expectations Japanese have for fellow Japanese English conversation teachers – note that this means that the survey refers to adult learners, not school children.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 13th of March 2012 1,055 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.2% of the sample were female, 16.9% in their twenties, 41.7% in their thirties, and 41.4% in their forties. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

Sort-of related, here’s a very interesting quote from the Osaka City governer on what he expects from English teachers in schools – I like the thought, but I don’t think teachers can just change subjects like that:

Teaching is also a form of status. There are many English teachers incapable of English. On the other hand, they have teachers who’ve come back from living in the United States teaching social studies. That’s all they have a license for. Next to the teachers fluent in English are the English teachers who can’t speak English at all, and the teachers back from the United States teach about the Japanese Diet, of which they know nothing.

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goo Research recently published the highlights of a survey they performed in conjunction with President magazine (hmm, I could very well buy that issue!) into the English-language ability of professional people.

Demographics

Detailed demographics were not given, but the sample consisted of 1,031 members of the goo Research online monitor group who were not necessarily readers of President. The sample was also limited to those between the ages of 30 and 59 who had not lived overseas but had taken a TOEIC exam. Note that a TOEIC score of 470 corresponds to reasonable ability with conversation and 730 to the beginning of decent proficiency in English.

It’s a bit difficult to draw many conclusions from this survey as having to use English in the workplace is going to naturally improve your English level, and with a number of companies having regulations that require a certain level of English to get promotion, and in an international business the higher-ups are going to have to need English to negotiate, so I think this survey is illustrating correlation, not causation.
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