Skeleton Writing in Chinese Universities: Truly Effective?

English Writing Test is considered to be one of the most effective measures in SLL and SLT. In China, in order to improve the students writing performance in tests, skeleton writing is widely employed in college English teaching. As a result, it is not surprising to see skeleton writing being desperately used in all sorts of writing tests, ranging from College English Test Band 4 and College English Test Band 6 (known as CET4 and CET6) to postgraduate entrance examination. However, some people have doubted about the effectiveness of skeleton writing. In order to explore the effectiveness of skeleton writing, a survey was conducted in the Chinese academic year of 2008 and 2009 in eastern China. Results of this survey suggest that although most training staffs attached great importance to skeleton writing, students, especially those with relative low English level, can hardly benefit from it. This essay aims to offer the conclusion that skeleton writing is really of some help for few, but not for so many as has been expected.