English Language Performance and Teaching Profession - A Case
study of the Conflict-affected Vavuniya District of Sri Lanka
Jeyaseelan Gnanaseelan
l. Introduction
In light of the sociopolitical context in Sri Lanka. the idea of creating bilingual
bicultural Tamil-English co-education has been in ar-rd of itself, an cnterprise to facrlitate
social hanr,'rry through a third nredium. English. Unfortunately. the Sri Lankan language education system has not facilitated a trilingual (Tamil, Sinhala and English) system
which has been one of the original causes of the protracted conflict.
It is necessary to initiate and foster egalitarian Tamil-Sinhala cooperation in
education, particularly through the development of ELT programs and bilingual and
multicultural coeducational institutions. The core of language teacher education is centred on the activity of teaching itself, the teacher who does it, the context in which
it is done. and the pedagogy by which it is done (Freire, Freire, and Johnson, 1998). Teacher
education is posing great challenges to teachers within the English as a second language
(ESL) context in countries, such as Sri Lanita in particular. This context requires the
language teachers to have "a combination of competencies and background that may be.
unprecedented in the preparation of language teachers" (Curlain and Pesola. l99l:211).
However. relatively little has been studied in ESL, teacher education, even less among Sri
Lankan teachers of English teachers at the school 1eve1.
The treatment of learner error, grappling with such issues as whether, when, what,
and how to correct, has been described as 'a potential crisis point' in a teacher's classroom life (l\1lwright, 1988:198).The present government of Sri [-anka iptrorluce,.
many educational reforms at all levels of education suitable for the 2lst century. One of
the key components addressed the urgent need for professional development for in-service
teacher education, which impacts secondary English teachers. anrl
millions of'stuclents learning English at thc seconclary level in Sri i-ant<a. Improving their
subject and pedagogical knowledge of this enormous number of teachers - worth only less
than 10% of the secondary teachers of English, respectively holding a university degree in English or ELT at the moment of this study - provides a daunting task {b:
Colleges of Education, colleges, and teacher training colleges.
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