That is a diffcult question. It depends on a lot of thing in the country. In my country, pupil have to learn english in high school, but it is not effectily. Because teacher have just concentrated on structure grammar, writing with boring homework. Otherwise, pupil did not recognize that how language was important, so they had no studied hard. Therefore, the result is pupil have to study english a lot of time, but they could not use it eventhough, they always pass an exam.

I have been talked with many overseas students and it's really funny that most of the European students that I met speak English perfectly or very close to it (some of them already got rid of their accent) but they are not so good with writing or reading (spelling/grammar etc). I remember there was a Russian guy in my class got 7.5 for speaking IELTS but only 5.5 for writing. In contrast, Asian students are really strong at writing/reading but unable to speak or express even simple ideas. To sum up, this reflects a different style of teaching English in the West and the East.

And I am wondering how is it teach and what a difference for example between Australia and USA.