SLIIT Conference and Symposium Proceedings
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All SLIIT faculties annually conduct international conferences and symposiums. Publications from these events are included in this collection.
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Publication Open Access Effectiveness of Using Prepared and Impromptu Speeches to Evaluate Undergraduates’ Oral Proficiency in English as a Second Language Classroom(Faculty of Humanities and Sciences, SLIIT, 2023-11-01) Jayathissa, K. D. MProficiency in English language can be considered as crucial because it has been commonly used as a lingua-franca in communication. This study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of using prepared and impromptu speeches to evaluate undergraduates’ oral proficiency in English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom. The undergraduates’ perception on the importance of testing oral proficiency and the effectiveness of prepared and impromptu speeches to evaluate oral proficiency of the undergraduates were investigated. A sample of 74 first year undergraduates who are reading up for Bachelor of Science (Honors) in Software Engineering were selected for this study as a convenience sampling. The data were gathered under three stages by following a mixed methodology. As the first stage a questionnaire was distributed and as the second stage a prepared speech was done. As the third stage, a prepared-impromptu speech and an impromptu speech were evaluated. The data collected from the questionnaire and the marks of the three speeches were analyzed to answer the research questions. The analyzed data emphasized that the participants have identified the importance of oral proficiency in English language for their future career and prepared and impromptu speeches can be used as a testing technique to evaluate undergraduates’ oral proficiency. Thus, oral proficiency in English language is crucial for the undergraduates, as English language has been used for communication purposes. Hence, prepared and impromptu speeches can be considered as an effective testing tool to evaluate students’ oral proficiency in English Language in the Sri Lankan ESL classroom.Publication Open Access World Englishes and Language Assessment in English Language Teaching in Sri Lanka: A Conceptual Review(Faculty of Humanities and Sciences, SLIIT, 2023-11-01) Ekanayake, E.M.P. E.This study is a conceptual review investigating the significance of World Englishes (WE) ideologies and its perspectives for (re)conceptualizing language assessment (LA) in English language teaching (ELT) in Sri Lanka. For this research, a keyword search was conducted on Jstor and Taylor & Francis databases and the internet and 21 scholarly publications with most relevance to the purpose of the study were selected. As such, 7 books, 12 articles from journals and research article compilations, and 2 conference papers were reviewed thematically in terms of the research objectives guiding the study: to identify what ideologies the scholarship of WE is based on and how they are useful for (re) conceptualizing LA; to identify what suggestions are made in the field of WE with regard to LA and how practical these suggestions are; and to understand the relevance of WE perspectives on LA, for understanding the role of SLE in LA in ELT in Sri Lanka. The findings reveal that the WE scholarship promotes five ideologies and that they are necessary for understanding WE position on pluricentric language norms, i.e. language standards which are regionally and locally determined. While this implies the relevance of Sri Lankan English (SLE) as the target language for LA practices in ELT in Sri Lanka, several obstacles to this speculative argument was also found through the analysis of literature. It can be concluded that although WE scholarship has much to offer in terms of the relevance of SLE to LA in Sri Lanka, these theories remain highly abstract until they are practically implemented and tested.