Grammar Needs Assessment for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classes.

The context: 
This assessment is for students in EAP classes of international students preparing them for entrance into university or college courses the following year.  Students have a minimum of a CLB 8 level or IELTS score of 6.5 and high school graduation from their country.

Assessment Tools: 
The assessments are designed to be realistic exercises that students will encounter in their academic life.  They consist of an email/letter and a summary of a technical paper or chapter, similar to what they may have to read for course work.  The main grammar points to note are listed below.

1) Email/letter:
Students will write a letter or email (in form) to an instructor or a professor which they would like to work with at some point during their academic studies.  This exercise will be done in class without using any electronics (ie using pen and paper), so avoid any use of autocorrect or helpful electronic programs.  The students will be given verbal instructions for the letter.  They must ask about the professor’s research interests, if they hire students for research, what skills they would require, what their own interests and goals are, and whether they could meet for a conversation.  They can look up a professor from a local university.

2) Notes summary:
Students will be given a short chapter from some scientific article, and will be asked to summarize it in a few paragraphs (1 page maximum).  This again must be done with paper and pen.  The students can choose from three different topics.

Things to look for: 
1) Sentence structure
2) Noun/verb agreement
3) Pronouns
4) Punctuation
5) Adjective order
6) Verb tense
7) Complexity of sentences
8) Use of conjunctions and clauses.
9) Capitalization.
10) Structure of document

Summarize the needs of each individual student and also the needs of the class.

Student interview: 
Conduct an interview with each student to assess:
1) what they consider their needs to be with regard to grammar  and writing skills,
2) what their future goals are with regard to academics and careers,
3) what support systems they access for writing skills,
4) what challenges they foresee in future writing skills.