Spoken language is the real language, the "default" one. It is actually much more precise than written language (because of stress and intonation, or facial expressions if you are face to face). So I agree: teachers should put much more emphasis on spoken English, which is also the most difficult part of English to master for ESL students.
Unfortunately, there are too many teachers who don't seem to understand that, often because they don't have a clue how to speak English themselves (foreign ESL teachers). It seems you just need to be able to fill in the blanks as expected to consider your English "good". No wonder there are learners whose written English is extremely good (good posts) but they admit they have serious trouble understanding spoken English.