During the last decade, more and more ESL (English as A Second Language)speakers have become graduate students at universities in English-speaking countries worldwide. Like their native English- speaking peers, those graduate students are required to listen, speak, read and write in academic English. In fact, their academic English proficiency to a large extent determines their academic success and professional future. I have designed A Strategy Inventory for Graduate Academic ESL Learning, which is a summative rating scale used to assess students' language learning strategies in order to listen, speak, read and write more effectively in academic settings. I have designed this inventory based on relevant research on language learning strategies, my own learning log as an ESL graduate student, and also information from fellow ESL graduate students.
During the pilot study stage, I plan to administer this inventory to a small group of ESL graduate students in the form of a survey. I hope to gain feedback and more insights while I analyze the results of the survey. After the pilot study, I will revise the whole inventory and administer it to a larger population. I also plan to make this survey available on-line. If I have enough time, I will also validate the inventory. My purpose is to find out about graduate ESL students' strategies of improving academic English proficiency. Currently I have only designed the listening and speaking parts of the inventory, and I will eventually add the reading and writing parts to the inventory. I hope the results of my study will raise studentsawareness of their language learning strategies, enhance self-regulated learning and also inform pedagogical purposes such as curriculum design and development of course contents.