Launching into the English Medium through an Integrative Approach (First published in The Island/Friday 5th November, 2010)For Sri Lankans English is mainly important in the three areas of education, employment, and international communication. Here we are concerned with education. In addition to being a lingua franca in the job market and in the field of global communication, it is a ...

Learner Autonomy in Perspective(First published in The Island on Wednesday 30th December 2009)Although the statement that effective learning occurs only when the learner assumes responsibility for his/her own learning may seem a truism today, it is worth a serious re-appraisal as it has crucial implications for the success of the national English language teaching drive now underway. It may be ...

Education for Employment(Previously published in The Island/Sri Lanka)Education is, ultimately, the process of acquiring the knowledge and the skills that are required for us to survive as a species. But we humans are too advanced and sophisticated to be satisfied with an education that is just adequate to meet this elementary need. Every human society, except for a few forest ...

English in General Education - A Historical Perspective(First published: The Island/1st October 2010) For well over two hundred years now English has been playing a predominant role, in one form or another, in all spheres of national activity in our country such as civil administration, justice, business, industry, and education. During most of this period, the majority of the population ...

At the time of Don David Hewavitharne (Anagarika Dharmapala)’s birth 150 years ago, there were no Buddhist places of worship in Colombo. Devout Buddhists had to go to the Kelaniya Viharaya 10 miles north of the city on full-moon poya days for their religious observances; the only other viharaya was at Ratmalana, 7 miles south of Colombo, where the learned ...

Multilingualism for the New Age(Previously published in The Island) “Knowledge of more than one language points to the expansion of specific types of competence. Multilingualism appears to help people realise and expand their creative potential. In addition, thinking, learning, problem solving and communicating, all of which are transversal knowledge-steeped skills used in our daily lives, show signs of enhancement through ...

Is the Spoken English Initiative a Failure? (First published in The Island/Sri Lanka on Friday 11th March 2011) Nearly two weeks ago, I watched for myself what was being achieved in a non-urban school under the English as a Life Skill programme launched by the Presidential Task Force for English and IT. The purpose of this short write-up is to ...

Language, Culture, and Development(First published in The Island/Sri Lanaka)Any human society can be described as a product of three interrelated, mutually dependent processes which are coterminous: language, culture, and economic activity. Social interaction motivated by our innate gregariousness as a species is at the root of these processes. Though almost certainly they had a common origin at the dawn of ...

Education and Teacher Dispositions (First published in The Island/Sri Lanka)Taking a fairly long walk has become an essential part of my daily routine for some time now. From the beginning I saw to it that my calf muscles start aching before I stop walking. Through experience I have determined the distance that should be covered, and the time it should ...

Mother Tongues and Multilingual Education(This appeared in The Island/Sri Lanka before)The term ‘multilingual education’ which embodies the idea of using at least three languages in education, namely, the mother tongue, a regional or national language, and an international language was adopted by the United Nations’ Educational, Social, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at its General Conference in 1999. As one of ...

THE VESAK FESTIVAL (The following is an updated version of an article of mine first published in The Island newspaper on 17th May (the Vesak day) 2000) The Vesak Full Moon Poya Day falls on the 27th of this month. Buddhists ...

Talking about Grammar without Grumbling (First published in The Island/17th September 2010)A fairly widely held belief among learners of English as a second language is that the study of grammar is a major stumbling block to their making any headway. They seem to view grammar as esoteric and abstruse; their attitude is: ‘Why should we bother about something which only ...

A Star in Love The poet saw Beauty The sculptor carved her Image They named her Venus We call her Madhubala - Advertisement for Sharabi (1964), the last of Madhubala’s films to be released in her lifetime, quoted by Khatija Akbar in her book about the late actress Madhubala (14 February 1933-23 February 1969), was “… the most beautiful of ...

Much Ado about Nothing?ByRohana R. Wasala(First published in The Island in two parts on 2nd & 3rd July 2010)As an ordinary citizen and an English language teaching (ELT) professional with some experience, I have no quarrel with the notion of Sri Lankan English/es or the idea of a standard form of it being advocated for teaching in our country, provided ...

Sri Lankan English and English Language TeachingbyRohana R.Wasala(This present article appeared in the Midweek Review of The Island newspaper on 23rd June 2010) A truncated version of this article first appeared in The Ceylon Daily News of Wednesday April 24, 2002 under the title “Sri Lankan English? The question of an acceptable model”. The same article in its complete original ...

The man was wearing a peaked cap and had a handkerchief over his nose and mouth as if he had flu. He looked like a college student. Then he swung himself onto the tailboard at the back and leaned in right over us. ‘Who is Malala?’ he demanded No one said anything, but several of the girls looked at me. ...

‘DILIP KUMAR – The Substance and the Shadow’ (2014) published about three months ago by Hay House India is the autobiography of legendary Hindi cinema actor Dilip Kumar (born Yusuf Khan) who is approaching his 92nd birth day. The book entered the Amazon best seller list within two weeks of its publication. Award winning film journalist Udayatara Nayar, a close ...

The Aluth Avurudda – A Celebration of Life(This article was first published in The Island of 13th April 2001; it has later appeared in a number of international online publications at various times over the last decade. I notice that the published .

Making the General English Paper Compulsory for A/L Students (Previously published in The Island/Sri Lanka) The Higher Education Minister’s decision to make the General English Paper compulsory from this year onwards for all A/L students seeking admission to universities should be hailed as a good initial step in the right direction, i.e., towards ensuring that all our university students whose ...

Launching into the English Medium through an Integrative Approach (Previously published in the Island newspaper, Sri Lanka)For Sri Lankans English is mainly important in the three areas of education, employment, and international communication. Here we are concerned with education. In addition to being a lingua franca in the job market and in the field of global communication, it is a ...