Symposia & Conferences
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Item The Status of Psychological and Physical Concerns on Utility of English Medium Undergraduates(5th National Conference on Applied Social Statistics (NRCASS) - 2019, Department of Social Statistics, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2019) Serasinghe, K.H.; Galagama, I.K.; Gunathilaka, S.N.English being recognized as one of foremost communicational tool in various countries and it is most acceptable and popular language other than any other languages. According to Alfitri (2012) 375 million people use English as their first language and 750 million people use English as their second language. English play a major roll within individual lives and as a result of that, utility of English became a major part in each individuals. In academic field English language became prominent language in both staff and undergraduates and leading language of instruction in most of higher education institutions i.e. universities. The main objective of the research was to identify what are the major psychological and physical obstacles face by English medium student within the University premise and as specific objective to examine how demographic nature of student’s influence on their continuation of study in English medium. The research has carried out using both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Purposive random sampling method being applied to collect primary data. The sample was consisted with 100 undergraduates under the department of Philosophy, University of Kelaniya. The collected qualitative data through questionnaire has being analysed using SPSS version 22 manually to draw up descriptive statistics. The research has found that, among the total sample 14% of the students face physical difficulties such as body shivering, drowsiness, suffocating, fast heartbeat, and swatting while 32% of students indicated mentally stressed such as feeling uneasy, confuse, shy, sleepy and anger. Therefore, it can be concluding as English become provocative language among the English medium undergraduates and that has been caused by psychological, physiological and demographic factors as well.Item Importance of English Communication for Technological Students from Rural Areas(4th International Conference on Social Sciences 2018, Research Centre for Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2018) Bandara, G.M.C.Sri Lanka is one of the developing countries with large number of rural students whom are not properly utilized. Many of the students from urban areas are having enough opportunities and qualifications to get a reasonable job. Now-a-days communication plays a major role in all sectors. Most of the students are looking for a job than gaining higher education. Employers give considerable value to graduates acquiring a diverse set of skills in different work environment. The IT revolution and globalization of business have emerged as two major factors to bring technical communication to the fore front of academia and industry. The rise and widespread use of information communication technology in the whole world making the global market and business becoming diverse and result-oriented, professionals and technocrats. However there are many more new challenges in communication every day. To be a successful technologist in this competitive environment one should not depend just only on acquiring knowledge and skills, but also need to develop effective communication skills. This paper aims to improve the communication skills of technological students of rural areas and encourage them to improve their communicationItem Degree, Foreign Degree or Degree in English? The Case of Students Studying for Foreign External Degrees in Sri Lanka(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Karunaratne, I.M.The demand placed on English as the international language by Sri Lankans has got a history which runs back to the days of the British colonisers. English was first transmitted to the elite class of Sri Lankans through the medium of education. An education in the English medium was offered to a selected group of Sri Lankans who could afford to pay for it. Consequently, English and economic status has been two inseparable social indicators of then Sri Lanka. The affluent in society adopted English as their home language and enjoyed the social and economic advantages that came with the language while the social and economic opportunities for the poor were constrained by the indigenous languages. Many researchers working in the area of education still point out the existence of a similar trend in Sri Lanka. The demand placed on learning English or learning in English has been on the increase over the past few years. The most recent phenomenon which proves the existence of such a trend in Sri Lanka is the mushrooming of international schools in and outside Colombo. Added to this is the accelerated demand placed on external degrees offered by foreign universities, especially American, British and Australian universities. The current research is focused on such a sample of students studying for a Diploma (external), which is equivalent to the first year of a B.Sc. degree offered by a reputed British university. As there is a dearth of research with students in similar study programmes, the current research has had to rely mostly on common sense understandings of such students and on my personal experiences of teaching in such a course in constructing its hypothesis. Five common perceptions can be observed about students enrolled in such programmes. The students are from rich families; They are drop outs of the main stream tertiary education, i.e. the national universities and therefore, have joined these external programs in order to obtain a degree; they are very fluent in English; their main interest is in obtaining a degree in the English medium and their main interest is in obtaining a degree from a foreign university. The current research intends to find out the accuracy of these perceptions by testing the following hypothesis: The demand placed on external degrees is not a result of students ‘wanting a degree’ but a result of ‘wanting a degree in the English medium’. In other words, the hypothesis implies that it is not the degree that is in demand but the language in which it is offered.Item The Impact of Affective Factors in the L2 Class and a Technique to Overcome them(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Suwandaratna, D.English language came into existence in Ceylon with the arrival of British in 1796. However, a need to teach it arose much later namely, when British felt the need of a "nucleus of native loyalists for their political stability and for the advancement of commercial interests". (Jayasuriya J.E.-1961: 1). Strategies adopted to meet these needs were ‘teaching English’ and ‘Christianisation’ of natives. English was needed to prepare natives for government employment and Christianisation was contemplated to civilise the natives whom British thought were ‘heathens’ (Sumathipala K.H.M. 1968: 01). Christian missionary societies wholeheartedly supported the latter. Although missionaries accepted native languages as the best media for ‘conversion’ they approved the former with the idea of reaching the “children of the higher social class "(ibid). This made commoners to associate English with Ceylonese elite. Levy of money for English education kept English out of the reach of the poor. Insistence of English as a pre requisite for government jobs, made English educated eligible for state jobs too. Introduction of the British public school curriculum which inculcated Christian and English ideals in English schools alienated the English educated from native languages and their cultures. Thus, during British rule English educated were an educated, wealthy, powerful esoteric group practising European life style. Following words of Fernando “ability to be at ease in English is a symbol of status, power, intelligence and breadth of vision“. (Fernando, Siromi 1986:46) prove the powerful position English occupies here even today. On account of this those who are skilled in English like to exhibit that proficiency; those non-proficient in it prefer to hide that fact. This paper discusses a technique based on vague pictures prepared to focus attention on meaning. Specially designed pictures which can be interpreted on the basis of the clues found in them are displayed on the board and students are asked to study these pictures carefully and interpret them, taking into consideration details like shadows ,position of various objects and postures of the people in them . As the pictures are vague, intelligent guesswork is necessary to understand them. In order to verify matters, students have to ask questions too. This encourages them to formulate meaningful language constructions as well. Purpose of the questions being eliciting information needed to interpret pictures, students’ aim here is meaning. Therefore, at this point they are prepared to use the language by means of whatever vocabulary and grammar they have at their disposal. This form of natural language, according to Rivers provides opportunities to students to test their ‘Hypotheses’ about L2.The other advantage is class begins to accept learner’s ‘Interim grammar’. (Rivers, W, M. 1983: 13) This ‘Interim grammar’ incidentally is what Nesmer defines as Approximative System. Nemser William in Richard (ed.) 1974; 63). This technique was tried out in E.L.T.U. classes, and the student participation was very encouraging.Item Translation of a Given Simple English Sentence into its Equivalent in Sinhala using a Speech Synthesizer(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Wickramasinghe, R.I.P.; Kumara, H.M.; Dias, N.G.J.Machine Translation (MT) or Automatic Translation is generally concern about automating all or part of the process of translating one human language to another language. These human or natural languages bear similarities as well as differences due to the way these languages have organized. Therefore, translating from one natural language into another natural language depends on their vocabulary, grammar, and conceptual structure. The translation Text-To-Speech (TTS) can be considered as the automatic production of speech, through a grapheme-to-phoneme transcription of the sentences to utter. To our knowledge there is no such a system in Sri Lanka that could translate simple English sentences into its equivalent in Sinhala with the relevant speech synthesis. In a country like Sri Lanka where the language barrier is a major issue, this type of systems will definitely help to reduce these language problems. With language translation coupled with TTS synthesis would be a good Computer Aided Learning Technique, that will provide a tool to learn English effectively. This paper discusses an approach to translation with a speech synthesizer of a given simple English sentence into its Sinhala equivalent. The problem of translation is handled in two phases, namely the lexical selection, where appropriate target-language lexical items are chosen for each source-language lexical item and then the lexical reordering, where the chosen target-language lexical items are arranged to produce a meaningful target language string. Together with translator, here we use the concatenative synthesizer which is embedded in the speech units to be chained up. In our speech synthesizer, speech units that are typically smaller than words are used to synthesize speech from arbitrary input text. Speech units are algorithmically extracted from a phonetically transcribed speech data set. The unit selection process involves a combinatorial search over the entire speech corpus using the search algorithms. Due to the practical difficulties and complexities this translation and TTS is tested only for the simple English sentences in which only SVO (Subject/Verb/Object) structure can be seen.Item Language and Identity after Five Hundred Years of Colonization(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Gunesekera, M.This paper examines the controversial issue of the status of the official, national or link language/s of Sri Lanka. The focus of the study is on perspectives of language and identity among speakers of English in Sri Lanka’s multilingual urban population. The objective of this study is to examine what languages or varieties are associated with identity in Sri Lanka. The data collection was done from 2003 to 2005 in Colombo, Gampaha, Kandy, Jaffna and Galle. This preliminary study is the forerunner to a more detailed analysis of varieties of English in Sri Lanka. Additionally, leading politicians were interviewed to learn their perspectives on language in contemporary Sri Lanka. The findings of the study indicate the confusion regarding ownership of language in Sri Lanka. For example, the terms ‘mother tongue,’ ‘home language,’ and ‘native speaker’ are used to denote different languages. This is possibly the result of legislation from 1956 demanding that citizens declare their mother tongue. Another finding is the ignorance of Sri Lankans regarding the status of English, which has been in use from 1796 to the present. Most users of English in Sri Lanka are uncertain about its status. The most crucial finding of this study is the non-recognition of Sri Lanka’s variety of English by its users. The leading politicians claim that they speak British English, and the majority of respondents from Colombo, shares the same view. Urban respondents from outside Colombo seem to be at ease in claiming Sri Lankan English as their own, which may be a sign of leading to ownership of language. However, the gap between English and identity in Colombo and the rest of urban Sri Lanka is an indication of the problems of language and identity as reflected in the recognition or non-recognition of Sri Lankan English.Item Testing Errors in Teaching English as a Second Language(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Ramesh, S.The paper presents the testing errors in teaching English as a second language. This study has discussed with based on two main themes, 1.) What kind of difficulties they face during the classroom teaching? and 2) . How testing helps the teachers of English? The following reasons could be considered and this study is structured by these factors: Finding out about learning difficulties; Finding out about achievement; Encouraging students; providing for feedback to the syllabus and the evaluation of method and materials The most important reason is to find out how well the students have masters the language areas and skills, which have just been thought. Errors are evidence of the learning process and it is important to try to develop a tolerant attitude them in the class room. Constant and immediate correction of errors can adversely affect the learners confidence and hinder the main development in learning process. To what extent should we concentrate on testing the students ability to handle elements of the language and to what extent should we concentrate as testing the integrated skills? Our attitude towards this question must defend on both the level and purpose of the test. Successfully communication situations which stimulate real-life is the best of mastery of language.Item A modernist approach to individual differences versus traditional class-based standpoint about adult learners of English from rural backgrounds(University of Kelaniya, 2013) Samaraweera, S.G.S.Individual differences that are innate in the ESL learners are decisive in determining the quality of language learning attainments. In the process of achieving proficiency in English as a second language, individual differences in intelligence, personality, memory, motivation and anxiety play a pivotal role. Although the lesson materials, the curriculum, the physical setting of the classroom and the competence and commitment of the teacher are properly orchestrated the expected outcomes may not transpire unless the teacher observes individual differences while developing and applying classroom management strategies. It is noted that most teachers of the Extension Course in English conducted by English Language Teaching Unit at the University of Ruhuna, usually do not consider individual learner differences in the process of enhancing their ESL proficiency. As there is a very close relationship between individual differences and second language achievement levels, with the help of a comprehensive account of individual differences, the ESL teachers should create a language learning setting that reduces the impact of individual differences on classroom management and provide students with the opportunity to evaluate themselves and manage their individual differences by developing confidence in the application of the target language. Language teachers have to be concerned, not only with the learners linguistic and cognitive development, but also with his/her emotional, social and interpersonal, cultural, psychological and physical development. The objective of the present paper is to discuss the major differences of adult ESL learners which in effect are the major findings of a survey conducted by the researcher in relation to a group of ESL adult learners of the Extension Course in English conducted by the ELTU at the University of Ruhuna. The methodology comprises classroom observation, interview, and a formal questionnaire with about hundred students, aims at investigating the ESL adult learner differences in enhancing ESL. The study examines the differences with reference to the relevant theoretical background. The pilot study findings reveal that the individual differences such as intelligence, aptitude, learning styles, personality, motivation and attitudes, and learner beliefs affect negatively in the process of enhancing ESL in adult learners.