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 — followed by immediate feedback.