English as a second language

[Tdol]

In Europe, the Cambridge exams are the most widely know. I'm afraid I've only been in Japan a few weeks, so I'm not able to comment on the education yet.

[dr_linguista]

It's the same here, we learn English at the age of 12, which is fair enough, I believe.

Because during the elementary learning, the educational system -in most countries- focuses on teaching the mother tongue first, which is more important than any other language!

Then comes the step of teaching/ learning another language -either the most dominant, geographically close to the country or that has a historical reference with the country and/or the mother tongue.

IMO, this is good because one MUST focus on his/her first language which is part of the identity.

Another thing, you don't have to travel abroad to grasp a language, esp, if it's English. Because almost all media is in English. All you have to do is to increase the number of hours of studying!

Good luck!