The dissertation examines the historical and pedagogical aspects of the development of the foreign language education system in Finland, the practice of teaching foreign languages in this country in the second half of the 20th - the beginning of the 21st century, and identifies the elements of experience that can be used in the development of the foreign language education system in Ukraine. It is emphasized that the source base of the research includes various, multi-disciplinary and multi-genre works: regulatory and legal documents: official documents of Finland and official documents of Ukraine; works of a theoretical and methodological nature; scientific and methodical sources; statistical reports and analytical materials.
The essence of key concepts ("education", "foreign language education system", "multilingualism", "language policy") has been clarified. In the process of conducting a retrospective analysis of the history of the development of the foreign language education system in Finland, it was found that the bilingualism of this country is a consequence of its historical development, and three stages were identified within certain chronological limits: 1950-1969 - preparatory - preparation for significant qualitative changes in education of Finland, including a foreign language; 1970-1999 - modernization - the period of reforming the educational system, diversifying the language offer and introducing the ideas of foreign linguistics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, etc. in the methodology of foreign language education in Finland; 2000 - 2018 - unification and certification - solving problems in the field of multilingualism of the united Europe, multilingual and integrated education. It has been found that the prerequisites for the formation and development of the foreign language education system in Finland are: the geopolitical situation, which necessitated the study of foreign languages by citizens of Finland; striving for diversification of economic and cultural ties and ensuring communication in all spheres of life; deepening of international cooperation, demand on the labor market; the country's transition from an agrarian, domestic market-oriented, to a highly developed industrial society; joining the EU, Finland's support of its language policy, which is focused on the cultural and linguistic multilingualism of the peoples of Europe, the demand for languages as a result of globalization and Finland's integration into the European and world economic, political, educational and cultural space; taking into account the prospects for the development of integration processes in the world and Finland's place in them.
The study revealed the approaches and methods of teaching foreign languages, the peculiarities of the practice of foreign language education in Finland, analyzed the possibilities of using elements of the positive experience of this country in improving the teaching and learning of foreign languages at various levels of the educational system of Ukraine. Foreign language education in Finland is considered as a component of the country's education system; the implementation of language policy in Finland is carried out through a combination of formal and informal education. It has been established that a characteristic feature of modern Finnish IE is eclecticism, a mixture of different approaches and methods to learning. Elements of the Finnish experience have been identified as useful for Ukraine, including: the introduction of a third foreign language even within the framework of school education; monitoring the quality of educational institutions at various levels of the education system; diversification of opportunities for learning a foreign language outside the institutions of the education system; forming in students the need to learn a foreign language and self-development throughout life; improvement of professional training of foreign language teachers.
