Symposia & Conferences
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Item Preferences on Learning English as a Second Language(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Jayasundara, J.M.P.V.K.English occupies the place of a Second Language (ESL) in primary, secondary and tertiary levels playing an inevitable role in the Sri Lankan education arena. Moreover, the necessity of English as a medium of instruction is realised by the government and steps have been taken to elevate the competency in English among students in Island‟s education system. However, much attention has not been paid to the favorite learning methods and styles of ESL learners even though methods and styles create enormous impact in acquiring language competency. Hence, the present study intends to explore ESL learners‟ preferences on learning English. Therefore, the research problems were formulated as the ways in which ESL learners wish to pursue English, their favorite methods of learning, learning styles and strategies preferred by the learners. In order to acquire the research objectives, a sample of 50 respondents from Uva Wellassa University was selected using stratified sampling technique. Further, a designed questionnaire was utilised to collect primary data while implementing graphs and charts for graphical depiction of the result. According to the results, most of the respondents (43%) are with the view that they need to improve their speaking skill further and secondly, one fifth of the respondents require enhancing their writing skill. When considering the ESL learners‟ favorite method of learning English, the method of conducting presentations has acquired the highest number of preferences by the undergraduates. However, lectures and videos both are placed at second with equal percentages. Moreover, more than fifty percent of the respondents wish to apply visual learning style while nearly one third of the respondents prefer to use a combination of visual, auditory and kinesthetic styles in order to pursue English. Thus, the results are beneficial for the teachers, the syllabus designers and the researchers to uplift the ESL learners‟ proficiency levels while highlighting the importance of recognising the learners‟ preferences in ESL teaching process.Item Intention of Pursuing English as a Second Language by Undergraduates(University of Kelaniya, 2015) Jayasundara, J.M.P.V.K.English opens new avenues in almost all the aspects especially in communication and technology in the modern globalized world. When it comes to Sri Lankan context, English language is commonly known as Kaduwa; the sword which kills those who are not competent in it. Hence, pursuing ESL has become a widely spreading passion in contemporary Sri Lanka as no one likes to be discriminated by others caused by lack of proficiency in English. Thus, most of the students tend to follow English courses in public and private institutions. Consequently, current study intends to investigate the intention of pursuing English as a Second Language (ESL) by tertiary level students. In order to achieve the objective, primary data were collected utilizing a questionnaire survey from 96 undergraduates of Uva Wellassa University using stratified sampling technique. The results ascertained through the analysis revealed that majority of almost all the faculties has the prime intention of obtaining a nice job with attractive salaries and good working conditions through pursuing ESL recording 85%. Further, gaining the ability to read English books and magazines with ease and gaining the ability to communicate freely in English with people from different countries have been reported parallel with the percentage 72 by each as second highest intentions of respondents who follow ESL. However, thirdly most of the respondents (71%) intend to pursue ESL as they want to get a job in which they can use English. Moreover, more than half of the respondents (60%) have the intention of achieving good marks and improve their evaluation in the academic transcript. Conversely, the fewest number of respondents (19%) wants to work either for an international organization (e.g. the EU) or for a global company (e.g., Nokia) by pursuing ESL. Thus, the results are crucial in designing ESL curricular for tertiary level students in order to better facilitate learners and furthermore teachers are benefitted with selecting ESL materials and activities. In conclusion, the prospective researchers will be enlightened to conduct further research pursuing this line of the study.Item ESL Learners’ Perception of the Medium of Listening(University of Kelaniya, 2015) Jayasundara, J.M.P.V.K.Listening is the most significant part of communication as it is pivotal in providing a substantial and meaningful response while playing a vital role being one of the four major skills in language acquisition. Further, being a receptive skill that is first developed in a human being, listening awakens awareness of the language. Consequently, sound, rhythm, intonation, and stress of the language can only be adapted through listening. Other than being the primary form of communication, listening assists learner to understand the beauty of the language forming the concrete basis for complete language proficiency. Hence, the current research was conducted with the objective of ascertaining ESL learners’ perception of the media of listening and randomly selected sample of 44 undergraduates at Uva Wellassa University were utilized while employing questionnaire survey and observations to collect primary data. Accordingly, the result revealed that the majority (52%) listen to English frequently at the university or college while 39% of the respondents listen to English by using television or audio equipment. Consequently, more than half of the respondents (52%) prefer to listen to English spoken in Great Britain while nearly one forth (26%) of the respondents’ preference is to listen to the USA variety. Moreover, similar percentages (48%) of ESL learners have learned to listen to English through teachers at their schools as well as movies and music. However, only 17% have learned to listen to English through English courses and seminars. As perceived by the participants, the biggest obstacle they encounter in listening is, understanding rapid speech of native speakers (39%) and vocabulary (39%). Hence, the results are advantages to facilitate ESL learners to acquire listening skills while exposing learners to a variety of listening comprehension tasks implementing both bottom-up and top-down processes. These are some suggestions to overcome the challenges in listening as well as to upgrade listening skills of students.