In Jyväskylä the English-speaking classes are located in Kortepohja Elementary School and Viitaniemi Middle School. In Kortepohja, grades one to six are taught and grades seven to nine are taught in Viitaniemi.
English-speaking classes are intended for families coming from abroad and staying temporarily or permanently in Finland, and for Finnish families in which English is also spoken. Students for the English-speaking classes come mainly from Jyväskylä, but they can be accepted from other municipalities as well if the municipality covers the costs of schooling. Since most instruction is in English, students should have skills in English that are adequate for their age level. If there is uncertainty about the level of language acquisition, children are tested in core areas of linguistic skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening.
Teaching in English began in Cygnaeus Elementary School and Voionmaa Middle School in 1996. The number of students has varied over the years from twenty at the beginning to over forty. During the current school year, twenty-seven pupils have enrolled in the English-speaking classes. They have studied in mixed groups for grades one through three and, again, for grades four through six. In some subjects students have been integrated into Finnish-speaking classes where teaching is conducted in Finnish. Most students have Finnish as their mother tongue, and in recent years most first graders have come to the English-speaking classes from the English Playschool in Jyväskylä.
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Currently, there are not enough children to allow for teaching in groups for every age level and, therefore, students study in mixed-age groups. The language of instruction is English, but for practical purposes students are sometimes integrated into Finnish-speaking groups, mainly in practical subjects, such as handicrafts or physical education. CLIL-teaching (Content and Language Integrated Learning) given in Kortepohja and Viitaniemi schools partly allows for the integration of English-speaking students with Finnish-speaking students in some lessons. Those who do not have Finnish as a mother tongue are also taught Finnish as a foreign language.
The teaching of subjects and assessment of student work follow the Jyväskylä municipality learning program with some adjustments. Where the allocation of time given to subjects deviates from the Jyväskylä program it is still in line with national curriculum standards.
Students in the English-speaking classes are given social and educational services according to the Finnish social security system. Educational materials are mainly from Britain and the United States, modified to meet Finnish requirements.
The teachers are either native speakers of English or Finns fluent in English. When needed, in some subjects, mixed groups are taught bilingually.
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