It has been argued that any classroom methodology to be appropriate it needs to be ‘culture sensitive’ (Holliday, 1994).  Further, it is also claimed that ‘culture sensitivity’ needs to be realized through ethnographic action research.  This paper examines the influence of western colonization on Education in Sri Lanka and as a result how different ‘school cultures’ developed.  Next, based on the findings of observational case studies of two schools the paper examines how the different school cultures provided opportunities for learning English.

Finally, the implications of the different ‘school cultures’ on learning English is discussed and the challenges for the future learning teaching process are identified.