http://drr.vau.ac.lk/handle/123456789/242 2026-10-08T19:46:39Z http://drr.vau.ac.lk/handle/123456789/2249 Group Work for Stress-Free Environment for Effective Language Learning and Acquisition - An Experimental Study Subajana, J. Group work is a general teaching-learning strategy where students work together in face-to-face interaction, with the teacher as a facilitator, to achieve a common goal. Language competency develops best in a stress-free, friendly, low-anxiety environment. Through fruitful discussions, students can personalise this knowledge, strengthen their thinking processes, and mould their language ability. This study examined whether group work enhances students' English language dexterity in a stress-free environment. The problem this study addresses is why students show inability and hesitation in language skills, especially when they feel insecure communicating in English, even though they have been learning the language for more than a decade; besides, they show little interest in learning the language. This study was conducted by selecting sixty undergraduates from the Faculty of Business Studies, Vavuniya Campus. Students were divided into twelve groups of five. They completed a series of individual and group work activities throughout the semester, and their performance was measured by pre-test and post-test scores; continuous observations and open-ended questionnaires were administered to elicit respondents' opinions. The collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics. After analysing the test scores, the study found significant improvement among students after implementing systematic group activities rather than individual or whole-class activities. The findings showed a higher mean value of 40.31 for group learning performance than the individual learning (29.6). The findings recommend implementing collaborative learning; teachers should avoid traditional language-teaching practices and conventional classroom setups to build language-learning competency. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://drr.vau.ac.lk/handle/123456789/2248 Syntactic Structural Analysis of Student Writing and Language Education Subajana, J.; Senaratne, C.D. This study investigates the diversity and syntactic complexity of sentence patterns in the essay writing of first-year English as a Second Language (ESL) undergraduates at the University of Vavuniya, Sri Lanka. Although university students are expected to demonstrate greater structural variety and complexity in academic writing, many learners continue to rely on limited sentence patterns and simple sentence constructions. The study therefore examines the extent to which first-year students demonstrate diversity and complexity at the intra-sentence level in their essay writing. A qualitative descriptive research design was adopted, supported by quantitative analysis. Ten essays written by first-year Information Technology students attached to the Faculty of Applied Science were selected through convenience sampling, comprising approximately 150 sentences. The corpus was analysed quantitatively and qualitatively using content analysis, thematic analysis, and descriptive statistics. The findings reveal that the Subject–Verb–Complement (SVC) pattern was the most frequently used sentence pattern, accounting for 56% of the analysed structures, followed by SVA (17%), SVO (15%), SVOC (8%), and SVOA (4%). In terms of sentence types, simple sentences constituted 76%, while compound and complex sentences accounted for 18% and 6%, respectively. These findings indicate that the students demonstrate limited syntactic diversity and complexity in academic essay writing. The qualitative analysis further shows that students experience difficulty in generating structurally complex phrases and clauses within sentences. The study concludes that explicit and progressive instruction in sentence patterns, phrasal structures, and clausal structures is necessary to improve syntactic variety, sentence sophistication, and overall academic writing quality among university ESL learners. 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z http://drr.vau.ac.lk/handle/123456789/2247 The Use of the Grammatical Morphemes of Plurality and Subject-Verb Agreement in Creative Writing in English in Sri Lankan Context Subajana, J. Writing is one of the prime productive skills for second language learners. Students have problem in the application of grammatical morphemes correctly. This paper investigates the use of the grammatical morphemes of plurality and subject-verb agreement such as the plural -s and the simple present tense third person singulars in the creative writing in English. The objective of this study is to make the students be clear in the plural -s, simple present tense third person singular -s and produce error-free piece of writing. For this study four students from the first year Faculty of Business Studies, were selected as a random convenient sample. It analyzes the texts written on the same topic in Sri Lankan context of different degrees of performance. It is an error analysis of the linguistic constructions of these grammatical morphemes. Importantly, four types of errors were identified as omission; addition; wrong selection and malformation. Both forms and functions and the erroneous forms and functions of the uses are analyzed regardless of age, first language (L1), length of ESL instruction or the amount of exposure to English. It identifies, classifies and analyzes them systematically and relates them to pedagogical consequence. These written texts were produced in a controlled environment of examination. Though the methodology is mainly qualitative, some quantitative analysis surfaces in certain aspects. It contributes to the research corpus of Sri Lankan data on the use of the grammatical morphemes in English. The findings suggest paying special attention on grammatical morphemes help minimize students’ errors in their writing. 2014-01-01T00:00:00Z http://drr.vau.ac.lk/handle/123456789/2246 Common Morphological Errors in English Writing of First YearUndergraduates of Vavuniya Campus as Second Language Learners Subajana, J. This study aimed to investigate common morphological errors in the writing of first-year undergraduates in the Faculty of Business Studies, Vavuniya Campus, and to propose solutions. The scripts of seventy-two respondents were qualitatively analysed. The respondents are multi-ethnic, including Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims. They are aged 21 to 23. The data were collected through a creative writing test based on the topic. The findings reveal that the students struggle with the grammatical morphemes: the plural -s, the possessive –s, and the simple present tense third-person singular –s (subject-verb agreement). 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z