Governments are challenged with pursuing macro-level interests for the good of the group, while also needing to accommodate and to acknowledge the needs and preferences of people at the micro-level. Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's (MEXT) "English Education Reform Plan corresponding to Globalization" policy appears to promote English in terms of linguistic instrumentalism while also recognizing the interests of people in the education sector at the micro-level. Our intention is to discuss MEXT's promotion of English as linguistic instrumentalism and to present an analysis of the EERPCTG policy document in an effort to suggest that MEXT's macro-level pursuit of English as linguistic instrumentalism actually trumps its efforts to accommodate micro-level preferences of English education. Overall, our intention is not to condemn the current social and educational situation dominated by neoliberalism, but to demonstrate that the use of words with positive discourse prosody in English education policy in Japan still results in neoliberalism, and to provide policy makers and practitioners engaged in English education with viewpoints to see the current situation from wider perspectives.