THE ROLE OF UNIVERSITIES IN ENHANCING ENGLISH SKILLS FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC: AN ACCOUNT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COLOMBO’S EXTENSION COURSES IN ENGLISH

Abstract

University work in English Language Teaching (ELT) to young adults commenced in Sri Lanka in 1960, with an intensive course in English to new entrants to the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ceylon in Peradeniya. Similar work commenced in Colombo in 1964 with the inauguration of the so-called “Ashva Vidyalaya”. The policy for this intensive course came from Faculty recognition of a need for Sinhala and Tamil medium Arts entrants, to enhance their English skills in order to cope with their advanced academic reading tasks in English. Although the 1960 course conducted by James Sledd at Peradeniya addressed more than the reading tasks, the immediate needs of academic reading were central to its policy. Within the next four decades, universities in Sri Lanka multiplied, intensive courses were extended to all faculties and also to on-going courses in Faculties of Arts, Law, Management etc. Some faculties conducted their courses in the English medium, and therefore their immediate needs extended from academic reading tasks to listening to lectures, taking notes, following instructions at ‘practicals’, speaking at tutorial and discussion groups, writing assignments etc. In addition, by about the 1970s, international research in ELT influenced university work in Sri Lanka, where communicative methodology recognized the teaching of all four skills, i.e. Listening, Speech, Reading and Writing, emphasizing the use of meaningful communicative activities rather than the teaching of formal grammar, meaning over form or structure and fluency over accuracy. It also began to be recognized that undergraduates were not achieving adequate reading proficiency in order to cope with their advanced reading tasks. Research on second language acquisition had started to show that tying students to academic reading and the study of grammar had not shown sufficient benefit. In response to all these issues, the initial policy widened to developing all four skills with more communicative activity. By about the 1980s, Sri Lanka began to experience serious problems regarding the use of English. Due to the underplaying of English in the national policy, it became clear that English skills were desperately neede d not only by undergraduates, but also by thousands of young adults and adults in Sri Lanka. State departments and institutions and private sector industries and companies were experiencing massive problems over recruiting suitable staff and managing their routine career tasks that needed to be done in the English medium. As a result, objectives underlying ELT developed from the narrow objective of meeting immediate pre-sessional needs through relatively short intensive courses to a comprehensive aim of providing for the total immediate and deferred needs of adults and young adults through on-going in-sessional courses in tertiary educational institutions and through pre-service and in-service career courses. The Extension Courses in English in Colombo were inaugurated in 1984 in response to these needs. Being the metropolitan university, the University of Colombo could and should cater to as many adults and young adults who were in need of English skills, as a former Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Stanley Wijesundera, recognized. As a result, he encouraged the Department of English & ELTU to run modestly priced service-oriented courses for outside persons, using the expertise and resources available to set up relevant and competent courses.