Academic English Skills & Academic Performance
Huang and Klinger (2006) reveal that English proficiency is a key factor that negatively affects CIS academic studies. To be more specific, they find that speaking and writing in English is very challenging for CIS. Similar results are also found in Berman and Cheng’s research (2010). In addition to the fact that CIS work hard in the courses and assignments, researchers have proved that good academic English skills have yielded a good GPA, particularly for graduate CIS whose programs are more language demanding (Berman & Cheng, 2010). Because English is an important part in obtaining a good GPA, and it exists in every part of their assignments. For example, in a typical graduate course at McGill, CIS are required to orally present their reading tasks, criticize what they had read in final term papers, and even write their research papers for publications, which all require CIS to use English to express their thoughts. Based on these assigned work, the instructors in these classes will evaluate each part respectively and then give a final grade to each student. If one’s English is less proficient, the lecturer will deduct points, which thereby influences his/her final GPA. That is why CIS might turn to the McGill Writing Centre for help. Even though it provides AEC to CIS, these courses assist students in organizing a literature review from a macro level (e.g., the structure) and paying less attention to some micro issues (e.g., English grammar, lexical choices). Consequently, CIS need some extra courses to fix their small language problems.