Despite improving results, Chinese students taking the International English Language Test still lagged behind the global average last year, especially in listening and speaking.
The problem lies in the tendency of Chinese students to bury themselves in test coaching courses, rather than improve their real language ability, according to Yang Huizhong, former chairman of the National College English Testing Committee.
"In fact, it's totally futile, and even harmful, to follow those misleading preparation courses or exercise books," Yang said.
IELTS (International English Language Testing System) officials also said Chinese candidates tended to overuse grammatical devices.
The results were released at the English Test Design Seminar held by the British Council in Shanghai yesterday. More than 100 experts and teachers attended.
General score for IELTS test-takers whose first language is Chinese was 5.64 points on average last year, 0.31 points higher than the figure of 2003.
However, the Chinese score is still relatively low compared with last year's global average of 6 points, IELTS officials said.
"The English language ability standards for Chinese have been going up in the past few years, and that is a very good sign," said Mickey Bonin, East Asia development manager for the University of Cambridge ESOL Examination systems.
Jointly managed by the Cambridge ESOL, British Council and the IDP Australia, IELTS is recognized as a key admission criteria by universities around the world, with a score range of 0 to 9 points.
More than 45,000 people in the country take the IETLS test each year, which makes China the largest IELTS candidate body in the world.
The language ability gap between Chinese and other English-learning candidates lies in both the four basic language abilities — listening, reading, writing and speaking.
The IELTS report showed that Chinese scored an average of 5.51 points in the speaking sector last year, while the average global test score was 6.04 points.