Academic Writing Development of ESL/EFL Graduate Students in NUS - ABSTRACT - Key Findings

Sep 29, 2026

Upload by jayni

The paper investigates how an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course affects academic writing development among ESL/EFL graduate students at the National University of Singapore (NUS). It compares essays written before and after the one-semester course across grammar accuracy, fluency, academic vocabulary use, and overall essay bands. Results show limited gains in grammar accuracy and fluency, but stronger use of academic vocabulary and significant improvements in overall language band. A questionnaire supports these findings and highlights usefulness for writing core modules and research papers.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Research aims

Method and comparison measures

Key findings

Questionnaire insights

Academic Writing Development of ESL/EFL Graduate Students in NUS Deng Xudong, Lee Kooi Cheng, Chitra Varaprasad, and Lim Meng Leng National University of Singapore ABSTRACT ~~ ~~ This paper aims to investigate the impact of an English for Academic Purposes course on the development of academic writing abilities of ESL/EFL graduate students atthe National University of Singapore. In particular, the study compared the essays students wrote prior to taking the course and after it in terms of grammar accuracy,ﬂuency, academic vocabulary use, and overall essay bands. The study found that while not much progress had been made by these students in terms of grammar accuracy and ﬂuency, they, over the course of one semester, were able to use more academic vocabulary, gained more than halfa band in their overall essay quality, and improved their language band signiﬁcantly. In addition, the study also administered a questionnaire to elicit these participants’ views on the usefulness of the course for developing their academic writing skills and for writing their other course-work related assignments, as well as on any potential beneﬁts (other than the development of English language skills) that the course may bring to them. The questionnaire analysis somewhat corroborates with our ﬁndings on grammar accuracy as students reported that the course did not help them improve their grammar accuracy. But apart from this, the majority of the students found the course to be useful for the enhancement of their academic writing skills. They also found the course to be of great beneﬁt in helping them to gain conﬁdence in writing for their core modulesand in writing academic research papers. Besides, students reported some ‘byproducts’ of the course, including their general English skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing emails as well as collaborating with other people. KEYWORDS: Academic writing; English for academic purposes; Grammar accuracy; Language learning The Centre for English Language Communication (CELC) is entrusted by the National University of Singapore (NUS) with the mission of enhancing the English language and communication skills of its students, both undergraduatesand graduates. To this end, CELC has designed a number of English language and communication skills courses to cater to the different needs of NUS students. While there is a great need to examine the effects or impacts ofall the courses CELC currently offers, the current study chooses to focus on the impact of the intermediate level graduate English course (i.e., ES5001A) on the academic writing development of ESL/EFL graduate students in NUS. This choice is deliberate for several reasons. First, the population of international graduate students from non Reﬂections on English Language Teaching, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 119–138 120 Deng Xudong, Lee Kooi Cheng, Chitra Varaprasad, and Lim Meng Leng English speaking backgrounds seems to be on the rise and the communicative competence in general and writing ability in particular, of these graduate students upon and after graduation will have a direct impact on NUS’ reputation. Students who are found to lack communication ability will reﬂect NUS poorly among employers, local and international. Second, provisions of English language and communication skills courses (including EAP courses) have over the years been subjected to calls for accountability, and in such terms as understandable to governing parties who tend not to be specialized in the ESL/EFL ﬁeld. Thus it isabout time that the impact ofCELC courses be measured and demonstrated not just in elusive arguments but in measurable and identiﬁable patterns. Third, CELChas yet to conduct a systematic study of the impact of its graduate English courses upon the development of graduate students’ academic writing skills, despite some sporadic ones examining classroom practices and processes. A study of this kind is thus long overdue as it could pr

FAQs

What is the main research purpose of the study?

The study investigates the impact of an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course on ESL/EFL graduate students’ academic writing abilities at NUS.

Which aspects of writing does the study compare before and after the course?

It compares essays in terms of grammar accuracy, fluency, academic vocabulary use, and overall essay bands.

What improvements did the students show after one semester?

Students used more academic vocabulary and improved their overall essay/language band significantly, though grammar accuracy and fluency showed limited progress.

Sep 29, 2026

Upload by jayni