International Graduate Students' English Language Need

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of the English language needs of international graduate students in the National University of Singapore (NUS). Students from one of the Graduate English Courses were invited to participate in a needs analysis conducted via a questionnaire. In ranking a list of academic tasks in order of importance for their graduate studies programmes, the international graduate students revealed their language needs in the four skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Also, the participants ranked a list of factors that impacted their studies and elaborated on any additional language needs/ factors that they considered important. Based on the results, recommendations were made to provide greater support to international graduate students in their language learning needs: incorporate more writing tasks into the Graduate English Courses, incorporate aural-oral tasks, tap on NUS’s Writing and Communication Hub and local /competent conversational partners, and consider offering a new module with more speaking and listening components. To address factors that impact their learning, the support of the university or learning community is important. While this study was conducted in one institution (NUS), the findings and recommendations may apply to other educational settings.