I’m sure they all write well; they’d have to, considering they’ve aced whatever exams they’ve faced on their path to their current positions as students or teachers. But what I was advocating in my original post was a more performance-concentrated teaching plan. Grammar can be taught in so many ways, and even the standard grammar, which, as you astutely pointed out, is a necessary component of English language learning, can be taught in a meaningful way. In fact, I’m pretty sure that with the amount of immersion in English and Anglo-American culture these days, learning the core standard grammar of English in the first years of schooling is almost universal. What this means is that teachers and schools should use the rest of the time to focus on authentic language teaching, immersing the students into the culture that the language is a big part of.

I’m aware of the shortness of resources in Finnish schools, but that’s never an excuse not to make improvements. One thing that I would really like to see come to fruition is an oral examination in the matriculation exam. Also, interviews for University applicants and some stricter requirements for teacher applicants. A teacher who is sloppy in his/her language use is in danger of contaminating hundreds of children with second-grade English that is culturally significant only in a very limited, non-native speakers’ sphere of society.