You complain too much.
They don't practice speaking and writing English because there is no need for most of them to speak and write it -- except maybe would-be translators, professors of English, etc. -- in their entire lives. That English is promoted to the status of the "second language" (!) -- rather than treated as _a_ foreign language that _some_ people study in such countries as Japan and Taiwan is merely an ideological byproduct of American hegemony after WW2.
The only notable economic impact of promotion of English as "ESL" is to give jobs to native English speakers who have no other discernible skill than speaking English.
On 6/22/06, Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> What's the point anyway? Isn't learning, say, Chinese
> more useful for someone in Japan? Or Korean, or
> Russian? They're right next door.
I agree with Chris 100%.
One thing that will, alas, continue to promote the study of English, as well as other commonly taught European languages like Spanish, French, and German, over Chinese, Korean, Russian, Arabic, etc., is path dependency, i.e., educational infrastructure (from teachers, textbooks, dictionaries, audiovisual aids, student exchange programs, etc.) already built up over time.
That problem exists here in the USA also. I'm trying to learn Persian now, but the only textbook available at a local bookstore is a dreadfully dry one. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>