A lot of people assume that kids always have an advantage at learning languages. The truth is that kids do, but only when they live in a country where most people speak that language. There's no reason to think that kids learn languages better when they only have class 40 hours a year.
I don't think making kids learn English at lower grades is the answer to Japan's English problems. The real problem is the outdated grammar-translation (yakudoku) method most junior high and high school teachers use. The Center Test doesn't include translation questions (at least it didn't last year), and if the government starts using TOEFL then translation will be even more useless.
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