Are English conversation skills really necessary for Japanese Junior High School students?

As a mother of a 14 year(s) old boy, who doesn't like studying any subject, I have tried lots of things to make him study. Since he doesn't study regularly, it is difficult for him to catch up with the class.
I always ask him to study with me, but he refuses my offer every time. I know he is in the middle of puberty so it is natural for him to (feel) not want to study with his mother.

I just want to help him. That's all.

He is not good at memorizing things especially English words, and Kanji.
But you must memorize words in order to understand English, aren't you? right? or mustn't you?  
It's kind of a vicious circle. He can't memorize words, so he can't understand the sentences, and it makes English more difficult for him.

Oh, the title I've written above was "Are English conversation skills really necessary for Japanese Junior high school students?".
The reason why I wrote the title was because there are teaching guidelines for Junior high school students by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
According to the guidelines, teachers must put emphasis on communication skills during the three years of school English education period.

I agree on the importance of communication skills, but is English really necessary to improve communication skills? For some teenagers, to speak something in front of their peers might be an embarrassing experience, let alone a foreign language. So if she or he isn't good at communicate communicating in English does that mean she or he won't get a good grade?

If we want to improve students' communication skills, we can improve the skills not only in English classes alone but also in Japanese classes and in other classes, such as social study classes, I think.

In the real life, do I use English conversation?
I say no. At least in my neighborhood there is almost no opportunity using to use English conversation.
If there is no opportunity using to use English conversation for the time being, why they should study conversational English at in the first place?

If someone needs to learn conversational English, learn personally then.

In my opinion, the ability to tell or transmit information about Japan and the local place for foreign people is much more meaningful than just making a short speech about "My favorite food."

What do you think?

You're English is great and I could understand everything you wanted to say, but here are my pedantic corrections. 

Foreign Language Learning Process

I'(m)'ve been wondering, how much time does it take to learn a foreign language. How do people even manage to (learn) perfect more than one foreign language which aren't in the same language group (perfectly)? Let's talk about English. To be honest, I have been learning English for about 1.5 years from the very beginning (elementary level) but I'm still far away from perfect knowledge of it in all aspects (reading, writing, listening, and speaking). It took a huge amount of time to get into grammar as English grammar is quite different from Ukrainian('s) and Russian('s ones) (and from Slavonic languages in general). Not sure about others, but its probably (it goes) a bit easier for instance for Poles as the Polish language has a(n) Latin alphabet at least and(,) is at the same time(,) a (belongs to) Slavonic language(s).
Also, the process of learning the English language (learning process) (ac)requires a constantly expanding vocabulary; learning the meanings of phrasal verbs and idioms and ways to use them. Yeah, at the first glance it looks not so hard, but without using the learned materials in practice, they are simply worth nothing. Also it is important to listen to something in the language you are learning. And I think it's much better if the materials you listen to are informal. Formal language is also ok, but informal (one) is widely used.
So, why (I')am I telling you that? I (had been learning) learnt German for about 5 years in school but now I can't even recall which tenses (are) there are, without mentioning the fact that I can't speak German now at all. Why? Because I didn't have any practice in German (since) after I graduated from school. So I mean to say that real life practice and lifelong learning are the most important requirements in successfully learning a foreign language (learning process).
And the last thing I want to say here is that I'm still wondering and it still remains a puzzle for me to understand how people know several languages perfectly at the same time.