I know people are frustrated by the lack of translation, but we have to face reality: it’s a lot more work to translate a novel than a manga, because of the amount of text involved, and the difficulty of the language level in a novel is generally higher. I guess in the long run, the only alternative to learning Japanese is to learn Chinese or one of the other languages that light novels are often translated into.

IMHO there just are limitations to how much speaking/listening improvement can occur in a classroom setting, because improvements in this area seem to be mostly dependent on time spent speaking and listening. Personally, I think if a student wants to live or study in a foreign country, literacy is important, because otherwise they’ll be unable to read signs or fill out forms. They’ll be unable to read newspapers or books. It will be difficult for them to build vocabulary, because they are cut off from this method of learning new words.