Browsing by Author "Jayasinghe, R.R."

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Accuracy in the Usage of Direct and Indirect Speech in Learning English as a Second Language: Tertiary Level
(19th Conference on Postgraduate Research, International Postgraduate Research Conference 2018, Faculty of Graduate Studies,University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2018) Jayasinghe, R.R.
Direct speech in English Language refers to quoted speech, for example, Rani said, “I visited my uncle yesterday.” Indirect speech refers to reported speech, for example, Rani said that she had visited her uncle on the previous day. When direct speech is converted into indirect speech, there are some fundamental changes to be made: changing the tense of the verb, the punctuation marks and references in time, pronoun, etc. Due to these complex rules, there is a possibility that the learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) would find difficult to convert direct speech into indirect speech successfully. The objectives of this study are: to find out whether there are significantly different areas in converting direct speech into indirect speech where all the 12 tenses of verbs in English language are concerned; to examine the percentages of the accurate usage of the punctuation marks and references in time, place, and pronoun in both direct and indirect speech. Total number of 50 first year students, randomly selected from the Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya, participated in this study. Twelve sentences in direct speech, each carrying one tense out of 12 tenses of verbs in English Language were provided to these students to convert into indirect speech, and vice versa. SPSS-21was used to analyse the correct usage of verb, punctuation marks, and the references in time, place and the pronoun in the direct and indirect speech. An ANNOVA was run, and the Tukey’s HSD test showed that there are significant differences in the correct use of verb across the 12 tenses in both direct and indirect speech. The findings concluded that there are considerable difficulties for these students in the use of verbs, punctuation marks and the references in direct and indirect speech. These findings can be used to facilitate teaching direct and indirect speech for ESL students at the tertiary level.
The Accuracy of the Usage of Prepositions by Learners of English as a Second Language in Dictation Tasks: Primary and Secondary Levels in Schools
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Jayasinghe, R.R.
English prepositions are often vague and confusing, and extremely hard for Sinhala speaking ESL (English as a second language) learners to learn the nuances of all the prepositions. Littlefield (2006) has found four categories in the domain of English prepositions based on ± lexical and functional categories: adverbial prepositions [+lexical, -functional], particles [-lexical, - functional], semi-lexical prepositions [+lexical, + functional] and functional prepositions [-lexical, + functional]. The aim of the study is to examine the accuracy patterns in the usage of English prepositions of ESL students in Sri-Lankan schools, comparing primary and secondary levels. The research problem of this study is, whether these ESL learners would initially imitate the sentences with different prepositional categories differently in the lower grades and by Grade 10, all the prepositional categories would be imitated equally well. A pool of 316 students from two government schools participated in this study, and 65 of the students were randomly selected from each Grade: Grade 4, Grade 6, Grade 8 and Grade 10 for the test. A Dictation task in which the sentence battery had a total number of 40 sentences, including 10 sentences each to test the four categories of prepositions found by Littlefield, used in this test to collect data. Students were asked to listen to the recorded sentences one by one carefully, and write them down. The scripts were marked and the scores were analysed by using Excel spread sheets and SPSS 12 using the experimental method. An ANOVA was run to investigate the significant variances between the correct use of the four categories of prepositions by these students across these four Grades. The findings can be applied to facilitate teaching prepositions in ESL classrooms from Grade 4 to Grade 10, and also in making the necessary changes in school syllabuses, text books and lesson plans on the relevant course units on prepositions.
The Accuracy on the Usage of Active Voice and Passive Voice by Learners of English as a Second Language: Tertiary Level.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Jayasinghe, R.R.
In English grammar, voice refers to the form of verb in a sentence: Active voice or Passive voice. In active voice, the subject of the sentence performs the action where as in passive form, the subject receives the action. In English Language, there are 12 tenses to indicate active voice, but the possibility of transforming them to passive voice depends on the given verb and the context of the sentence. Though the active voice verbs are stronger and usually more empathetic than the passive voice verbs, the university undergraduates of the Faculty of Science have to master the passive voice accurately in order to report their experiments and research findings quite frequently. However, even having a good knowledge of the 12 tenses in active voice, many ESL (English as a Second Language) learners fail to transform some of them into passive voice successfully. The aim of this study is to examine the accuracy patterns of the ESL learners‟ usage of passive voice and thereby to find out the causes of these learners‟ difficulties in transforming active voice sentences into passive voice. The hypothesis of this study is, the intralingual difficulties in English language, create undergraduates‟ errors in passive voice construction. A pool of 150 Physical Science first year students of University of Kelaniya were examined in this study. These students were given a writing task to transform active voice sentences of all the 12 tenses in English language into passive voice. These students‟ accuracy was marked and analyzed by using an ANOVA test followed by an HD Tukey test in SPSS. The results showed a substantial number of significant variances between the accuracy of passive voice sentences in different tenses. This study concludes that the students make errors in transforming active voice to passive voice due to the interlingual difficulties caused by the negative influence of their first language, Sinhala, and also the intralingual difficulties in their target language, English. These findings can be used to facilitate teaching passive voice in ESL classrooms at the tertiary level.
Acquisition of English Prepositions by the ESL Learners of Sri Lanka
(the International Conference on Postcolonial Societies in Transition, 2015) Jayasinghe, R.R.
Sri Lanka inherited English Language from its last colonizers, the British and a positive interest was taken by British in teaching English for the Sinhala speaking students since then. Today, in postcolonial era, formal teaching of English as a second language (ESL) is introduced in government schools from Grade 3 onwards. Teachers of English in Sri Lanka are well aware that English prepositions are one of the most difficult areas for them to teach ESL students. Moreover, Thilakaratne 1992 shows that in English, prepositions are words, while in Sinhala they are represented as spatial postpositions or suffixes (locative, ablative Case) and create learning difficulties for ESL learner. The study examines the acquisition of prepositions by Sinhala speaking learners of English with respect to the four fine-grained categories of prepositions, where the evidence for the existence has been found by Littlefield (2006) through first language acquisition using five English speaking children (aged 1;2-2;3). The present study aims to validate or disprove this type of fine-grained approach to preposition on the basis of Sinhala speaking ESL learners’ responses in a dictation task. A total number of 65 Sinhala students from Grade 4 from two government schools will be examined for the test and a sentence battery of 40 sentences with10 sentences each for adverbs, semi-lexical prepositions, and functional prepositions will be used in the dictation task. Elicited imitation method is used to collect data and will be analysed statistically by using SPSS. Based on the findings, the order of acquisition of prepositions in comprehension would be detected, and this order could be suggested as a user friendly guideline to teach English prepositions in the ESL class-room.
Acquisition of English prepositions by ESL learners in Sri Lanka: A comparison between Grade 4 and Grade 6 of Government schools
(Annual Research Symposium conducted by the National Centre for Advanced Studies in Humanities & Social Sciences Sri Lanka, 2015) Jayasinghe, R.R.
Research and simple observation indicate that English prepositions are a problem for learners at every level of proficiency (Cowan, 2008). Littlefield (2006) has investigated the existence of four fine-grained categories of prepositions in the domain of prepositions by analyzing first language acquisition of five children (aged 1;2-2;3) using naturalistic speech data as follows: (1) Adverbial prepositions [+ Lexical, -Functional], (2) Semi-lexical prepositions [+Lexical, +Functional], (3) Particles [-Lexical, - Functional], (4) Functional Prepositions [- Lexical, + Functional] Littlefield considered as [+Lexical] those that contribute semantic content, and as [+Functional] those that are able to check the Case of their complements.The overall objective of the study was to validate the existence of these fine-grained categories of the domain of English prepositions by using ESL learners in Grade 4 (aged 9- 9;11) and Grade 6 ( 11- 11;11) of two government schools in Sri Lanka and to compare the order of acquisition of English prepositions in Grade 4 with Grade 6. A dictation task was administered to 65 students from each Grade in two schools. Ten sentences each with each category of preposition were recorded, played to the students and requested them to write them down. The findings were quantified and analyzed using SPSS. . The findings of the study validated Littlefield’s 2006 study that there are four categories of prepositions in the domain of English prepositions. The results showed that in both grades there is a significant difference in the acquisition of adverbial prepositions with particles and functional prepositions. There is no significant difference between the other categories of prepositions in both grades. The findings also showed that the order of the acquisition of English prepositions in Grade 4 and Grade 6 were similar and the sentences with [+Lexical] prepositions are imitated better than the sentences with [-Lexical] categories. The observations conclude that the existence of four fine-grained categories of preposition is validated by ESL learners of both Grade 4 and Grade 6. Both Grades showed the same order of acquisition of English prepositions and it differs from the native speakers’ order. The order of acquisition of English prepositions, found in this study is recommended to the teachers of English to use at the ESL classroom to facilitate teaching English prepositions in schools effectively.
Acquisition of English Prepositions in Writing by ESL Learners
(University of Kelaniya, 2015) Jayasinghe, R.R.
English prepositions are difficult for ESL (English as a second language) learners mainly for two reasons: (1) The cross linguistic variations between L1 and L2 (first language and second language). (2) The polysemy of English prepositions where they are used to denote a wide range of meanings in different perspectives. Littlefield (2006) has investigated four categories of prepositions through the analysis of naturalistic speech of five English speaking first language children (aged 1;2-2;3) as follows: Adverbial prepositions [+Lexical, -Functional], Particles [-Lexical,-Functional], Semi-lexical prepositions [+Lexical, +Functional], Functional prepositions [-Lexical, +Functional]. Littlefield also has shown that the acquisition of categories of prepositions with [–Functional] features rank higher than the categories of prepositions with [+ Functional] features. She considered as [+Lexical] those that contribute semantic content, and as [+Functional] those that are able to check Case of their complements. The present study sets to examine the acquisition of prepositions by Sinhala speaking learners of English with respect to Littlefield (2006) findings. It investigates whether the same ranking in acquisition of the four categories of prepositions can be validated by the Sinhala speaking ESL learners’ responses in a writing task. A picture story writing task in which the prepositions needed to be abundantly used was utilized in order to collect elicited production data from 40 students of Grade 4 who were randomly selected from two government schools. Quantitative statistical analysis using SPSS was used to find out whether there were significant differences between the acquisition of each set of two different categories out of these four categories of prepositions. If prepositions with [-Functional / +Lexical] feature rank higher than the prepositions with [+Functional /-Lexical] feature respectively, relevant order can be used as a guideline in the ESL class-room to facilitate teaching of prepositions through writing tasks.
Acquisition of locative and directional prepositions by ESL learners of Sri Lanka
(University of Kelaniya, 2015) Jayasinghe, R.R.
The aim of the study is to examine whether the ESL learners whose first language is Sinhala, acquire locative prepositions better than the directional prepositions initially, and this particular lexicalization difficulty in acquisition slowly disappears by the time the learners reach the tertiary level education. Space related language manifests itself in different ways. In English it appears as prepositions. Mastering the use of spatial prepositions is one of the challenging tasks that the English language learners face. Spatial prepositions are of two types: (1) Locative prepositions, for example, The candle(figure) is on the table(ground) (2) Directional prepositions, for example, The horse(figure) jumped over the wall (ground). Locative and directional prepositions in English language occur before the groundof the spatial scene whereas in Sinhala language, postpositions are used instead. Stinger (2005) has shown that the directional prepositions (traversal paths) present a particular lexicalization difficulty in the early stages of acquisition of English, French and Japanese as the first language. A dictation task was administered to 185 students from two government schools and the performance of 20 students was analysed from each of the following grades: Grade 8, Grade 10, and Grade 12. A sentence battery consisting of 20 sentences of which 10 sentences each contained locative and directional prepositions was used. Students were asked to listen to the each sentence carefully and write it down. The elicited imitation method was used to collect data and quantitative statistical analysis was computed using SPSS to find out whether there is a significant difference between the accuracy of the locative and directional prepositions within and across the grades. As the outcome of this research, if one category of spatial prepositions shows an initial advantage over the other, the relevant order can be used as a guideline in the ESL class-room to facilitate the teaching of spatial prepositions in the relevant grades. If this particular acquisition difficulty disappears by Grade 12, both categories of spatial prepositions can be introduced at equal frequency at the tertiary level through dictation.
Acquisition of Prepositions by ESL Learners through Dictation Tasks
(KALYANI Journal of the University of Kelaniya, 2018) Jayasinghe, R.R.
The study examines the acquisition of English prepositions by Sinhala speaking learners of English with respect to four fine-grained categories of prepositions found by Littlefield (2006) using first language acquisition of English speaking children. The acquisition order of these four categories found by Littlefield: adverbial prepositions [+Lexical, -Functional] , particles [-Lexical, -Functional] , semi-lexical prepositions [+Lexical, +Functional] , and functional prepositions [¬Lexical, +Functional] , showed an advantage of [-Functional] features over the [+ Functional] features. One of the aims of the study was to find out whether this ranking was good for learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) in tasks that tap comprehension knowledge (dictation task). The second aim was to see whether at initial stages of learning, there was an advantage of either [+Lexical] features or [-Functional] features, which disappeared at later stages of learning. 316 Sinhala speaking learners of English studying in Grades 4, 6, 8 and 10 answered a dictation task with 40 sentences, 10 each with adverbial prepositions, semi-lexical prepositions, particles and functional prepositions. Sentence length and structure was controlled and sentences differed only in the category of preposition used in them. The main findings of this task were as follows: (1) ESL learners imitated the four categories of prepositions differently in the dictation task. (2) [+Lexial] prepositions were better imitated than [-Lexical] prepositions initially, and this 'lexical' advantage disappeared in Grade 10 with all categories being used with comparable accuracy. These findings are recommended to be used in the ESL classroom to facilitate teaching prepositions
An Analysis of Syntactic Errors of the Undergraduates Who Study English as a Second Language
(University of Kelaniya, 2007) Jayasinghe, R.R.
The system of rules and categories that underlies sentence formation is called syntax. As Corder (1973: 167) noted: "Errors provide feedback to the teacher on effectiveness of the teaching material, teaching techniques and show what part of the syllabus has been inadequately learned or taught." In Error Analysis, samples of learner language are collected and errors are identified, described and classified according to their hypothesized reasons. In the Faculty of Commerce and Management of the University of Kelaniya, the first year students study English as a Second Language and they follow a course titled "English for Business Communication", which is compulsory to complete their degree. With fourteen years of experience in English language teaching, the researcher has noticed that there are some individual variances in sources of errors, indicated by students' performance in English language learning. Also it has been observed that the knowledge in syntax is crucial in their examinations and assignments. Therefore the analysis of errors of ESL students in the Faculty of Commerce and Management would be useful and worthwhile. The paper focuses on the syntactic errors of about 40 randomly selected first year Commerce and Management students and they were given a questionnaire to find out their difficulties in syntax of English language. The necessary data will be obtained by analyzing the students' errors in their written work. The descriptive method will be used and statistical analysis will follow to identify the sources of errors. At the conclusion of this investigation, remedial measures will be discussed, and some suggestions for teaching ESL will be proposed in this context.
A comparison between the acquisition of phrasal verbs and spatial prepositions by Sinhala speaking ESL learners
(8th Research Conference, the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka, 2015) Jayasinghe, R.R.
The phrasal verbs are phrases which consist of a verb in combination with a preposition. They are not only used in spoken and informal English, but also in written and even formal English. According to Fraser 1965, 1976; Bolinger 1971, the prepositions in phrasal verbs trigger an aspectual or idiomatic meaning as follows: (1) The small girl ate up the biscuits (aspectual-finished sense). (2) Women drink skim milk to shape up their bodies (idiomatic). Here up gives an unpredictable meaning and the meaning of shape up cannot be gathered by adding the meanings of the two words: shape and up Spatial prepositions show the spatial relation between two entities, for example, The box is under the bed or the path of movement of one object with respect to another entity, for example, The man swam across the river. The study examines the acquisition of phrasal verbs and spatial prepositions of Sinhala speaking ESL learners in Grade 4 and Grade 6 by using elicited imitation data. The study aims to investigate which category of these prepositions should be introduced first in the ESL class-room through listening comprehension tasks. A dictation task will be administered for about 60 students from each grade from two schools in Colombo. A sentence battery containing 10 sentences each with phrasal verbs and spatial prepositions will be used in this study. Students will be instructed to listen to these 20 sentences carefully and write them in the given answer sheets. Elicitated imitation data will be collected, and quantitative statistical analysis will be applied using SPSS to examine whether there is a significant difference between the acquisition of two categories of preposition within and across the grades. The findings would be used to make necessary suggestions for teaching phrasal verbs and spatial prepositions for Sinhala students. If the acquisition of one of these two categories of preposition shows an advantage over the other, that particular category must be introduced earlier than the other in the ESL class -room.
Error analysis on English as a Second Language (ESL) Learners’ usage in prepositions in dictation tasks
(Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Jayasinghe, R.R.
Sinhala speaking ESL (English as a Second Language) learners make many errors in the use of prepositions in given sentences, in dictation tasks, mainly due to cross-linguistic differences between their first and second languages. For example, English prepositions are words, but in Sinhala, they are represented as spatial postpositions, or as suffixes (locative and ablative case). Some prepositions are polysemous, and the Sinhala ESL learners often become frustrated when trying to distinguish their meanings. Therefore a study, investigating the error patterns in the usage of English prepositions by Sinhala speaking ESL learners in dictation is significant. Littlefield (2006) has found the existence of four categories of English prepositions with ±lexical and ±functional features: Adverbial prepositions [+Lexical, -Functional], Particles [-Lexical,- Functional], Semi-lexical [+Lexical, +Functional], Functional prepositions [-Lexical, + Functional]. The objective of this study is to examine whether Sinhala speaking ESL learners make more omission errors in [+Functional] prepositions than in [+Lexical] prepositions in dictation tasks; whether the category criterion will be preserved in substitutions; and whether these ESL learners in lower grades tend to omit prepositions more often than in higher grades whereas, in higher grades, they substitute prepositions more often than in lower grades. A pool of 316 Sinhala speaking ESL students from four grades: Grade 4, Grade 6, Grade 8 and Grade 10 participated in this study. A dictation task consisting 10 sentences each with adverbial prepositions, semi-lexical prepositions, particles and functional prepositions was used. The learners’ were asked to write down these sentences, and their errors were analysed using Excel, following experimental method. Findings concluded that the omissions were higher in lower grades and, substitutions were higher in higher grades and respected the category rule. The findings of error patterns can be used to minimize Sinhala speaking ESL learners’ errors in prepositions in dictation tasks, given in sentence form.
Error Analysis on Prepositions Used by the Learners of English as a Second Language in Writing
(International Journal of Social Science and Technology, 2018-06) Jayasinghe, R.R.
This study examines omission errors, substitution errors and addition errors in the usage of prepositions by the learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) in writing tasks. The main purpose of the study Is 10 investigate: whether the school children in lower grades tend to omit prepositions more often than in highs? grades whereas in higher grades, they show more substitution and addition errors. A pool of 260 Sinhala speaking students from four grades (Grade 4, Grade 6, Grade 8 and Grade 10) participated in this study, picture story writing task where prepositions needed to be abundantly used was administered, and errors the use of prepositions were analysed. The main findings concluded; although more omission errors were found in the lower grades significantly, the increase in substitution errors towards higher grades is not w sharp. These findings can be used in the ESL classroom to facilitate teaching English prepositions.
Error Analysis on the Usage of Prepositions by the ESL Learners in Writing Tasks
(Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Kelaniya, 2015) Jayasinghe, R.R.
This study examines the patterns of three types of errors: omission errors, substitution errors and addition errors in the usage of prepositions by ESL (English as a Second Language) leaners in writing tasks. The study investigates the following: whether the school children in lower grades tend to omit prepositions more often than in higher grades whereas in higher grades, they substitute prepositions more often than in lower grades; whether omission errors are more in [+Functional] prepositions than in [+Lexical] prepositions; and whether the category criterion will be preserved in substitutions. Sinhala speaking ESL learners make errors in prepositions mainly due to cross-linguistic differences between their first and second languages, and as a result, many difficulties occur in ESL teaching. A pool of 260 Sinhala students from four grades (Grade 4, Grade 6, Grade 8 and Grade 10) of two government schools in Sri Lanka participated in this study, and the Survey Method was followed to collect data. A picture story writing task where prepositions needed to be abundantly used was administered to these students and they were instructed to identify the story depicted in the pictures and to present it in writing. The errors in each prepositional category: Adverbial prepositions, Semi-lexical prepositions, Particles and Functional prepositions were counted. Each error was further categorized as omission, substitution and addition. Percentage of each error type in each grade was calculated to find out which error types were most frequent and for which category. Substitution errors were further analyzed to see whether substitutions respected categorical distinctions. Quantitative analysis was carried out using SPSS 2012, and interaction effects and category-wise analysis were computed. Findings concluded that there were more omission errors in the lower grades and more substitution errors in higher grades, and the learners generally respected the category rule in their substitutions. These findings can be used in the ESL classroom to facilitate teaching English prepositions.
Negative interference of Sinhala language in learning English as a second language
(University of Kelaniya, 2008) Jayasinghe, R.R.
Reliability of Language Tests (Speech and Written) - First Year Students in Commerce and Management Faculty
(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Jayasinghe, R.R.
A test, like any other type of instrument used to measure should give the same results every time it measures, if it is used under the same conditions. This is considered the Reliability of a test. But human beings do not behave in exactly the same way on every occasion, even when the circumstances seem identical. The performances of students on any test can vary for a variety of reasons. The purpose of this research is to observe the reliability of two main tests. First I took a sample of test scores of the Placement Test (a written test) for “English for Business Communication” course (Test-1-A). This test was held in an examination hall in a fairly formal environment. After about one month, I took the same group of students and held the same test inside my classroom (Test-1-B). As the next step I held an oral test (presentation) again in a fairly formal environment (Test –2- A) for this particular group. Next, I held the same oral test inside my classroom for the same group of students. (Test-2-B) This paper attempts to focus on the reliability of these two tests by calculating the Reliability Coefficient - K-R 21. An analysis on how these reliability coefficients vary due to the sources of Error Variance, as a result of environment (e.g. location, space, ventilation) and also as a result of variance attributable to examinees (e.g. emotion, memory) will be discussed. At the conclusion of this investigation, we would be able to find out how these sources of Error Variance affect the reliability of the two tests. Moreover, we can minimize such Error Variance in test-administration to some extent.
Testing and evaluation in English as second language: University of Kelaniya
(University of Kelaniya, 2009) Jayasinghe, R.R.