Frustration with English language

I'm working in a Japanese organization. All staffs including the management are Japanese but we very frequently communicate with American or European counterparts and partners. We need to use English when communicating. It's unfair because English native speakers don't have to have trouble in using English, but it doesn't bother me too much. If they want me to speak English, I will do so. Speaking English is my generosity and mercy for someone who doesn't speak any other languages than English for some reason.

Some Japanese feel strong stress in using English and their English in many cases is not good enough. Therefore, they spend painful efforts in speaking a language which they are not familiar with and end up failing to make themselves understood. This causes extreme stress which makes them upset. Repeating such experiences again and again gradually leads to low self-esteem of them. They suffer from it because everybody wants to think he is a respectable person - especially when he is an adult. This frustration sometimes turns into hatred of English language, English native speakers or everything English.

Well, at least this was a part of my mindset when I was a college student, when I couldn't use English as freely as I wished. Clumsiness in the use of the language darkened my mind and I felt myself miserable. Fortunately I was young and kept my head up to overcome the frustration. When my English came to an OK level, I realized I was much freer than before. I could argue, with confidence, not being capable of using English is nothing to feel ashamed of. However, this is a way of thinking which I was never able to adopt when I was clumsy in English.

Today, I am surrounded by colleagues who are not good at English. They say they admire my English, feel ashamed of themselves and ask me to teach them English. In such a case, I smile and just let it go. Never take it seriously. It is no use telling them not to feel ashamed, because they will not believe you. Kindly trying to help their English also won't help very much, because they will feel insulted. Beneath their smiling face does piled-up frustration exist and just poking it will cause hateful feeling to pour out.

If I look at my colleagues, they are mostly men in their 50s or 60s. They say they want to learn from me but I'm 100% sure they never mean to. Men in their 60s happy to learn from a woman younger than them are very very rare. They struggle in speaking English which doesn't make much sense and they murmur complaints about foreigners but don't feel inclined to practice English. I feel irritated every now and then - but I just let it go.