The man replied, "I'm a high school English teacher!"
This true story has a number of points to it. First off, it shows why, in spite of the English instruction provided in public schools, there are so many private English Conversation (Eikaiwa) schools in Japan.
Japanese are required to study English in junior high and high school, and many study it in university as well. But even after all this time studying English, most of them communicate in the language on roughly the same level as Godzilla. Or maybe George W. Bush.
In many cases their teachers, like the one in my friend's anecdote, can barely speak the language either. Amazingly, though, this doesn't matter, at least in the short term, because high school English programs generally concentrate on teaching grammatical minutiae that are required knowledge for passing university entrance exams.
As opposed to using the language for, oh, say, COMMUNICATION?
If someone needs to do that, then it's off to an Eikaiwa school. By the time they get to Eikaiwa, though, many Japanese are convinced that their own lack of ability, rather than their education system, is at fault for their ineptness in the language. "I've studied English for six years, but I can't speak English" is a common refrain. Furthermore, the system has made them afraid to make mistakes, for fear of being dressed down by the teacher. In my teaching experience, I've found that bolstering student self-confidence is an important part of the job. And an Eikaiwa teacher must often say, "If you never make mistakes, you won't learn."
Most Eikaiwa teachers are native English speakers--though there are stories of Frenchmen or other Caucasians being hired to teach English. Some schools may see Caucasian teachers as being important to meet student expectations: a Filipino or an Asian-American, no matter how fluent their English, might strike a Japanese as "wrong" for the role. English speakers are white, aren't they? Fortunately, this attitude seems to be changing, however slowly.
Beyond that, to qualify for the job, you must have a four-year college degree. In engineering. In history. In underwater basket weaving. Maybe even in teaching English as a second language! Hey, you speak this language every day, you can teach it, right??
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