http://drr.vau.ac.lk/handle/123456789/244 2026-11-12T23:33:06Z http://drr.vau.ac.lk/handle/123456789/2252 Universal Ethics Across Cultures: A Comparative Study of Thirukkural and Shakespeare Sebarajah, A. Thirukkural, authored by the Tamil philosopher Thiruvalluvar (c. 300 BCE–300 CE), stands as a foundational ethical text in Tamil and world literature. Comprising 1,330 couplets, it addresses virtue (Aram), governance and material life (Porul), and love (Inbam). William Shakespeare (1564–1616), writing in Early Modern England, explored comparable ethical and psychological concerns through drama and poetry. Although there is no historical evidence of direct contact between Shakespeare and Tamil literary traditions, comparative literary analysis reveals striking thematic convergences. This study argues that the ethical parallels between Thirukkural and Shakespeare arise from shared humanistic concerns rather than direct influence, reflecting universal moral values across cultures and historical periods. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z http://drr.vau.ac.lk/handle/123456789/2251 A comparative Study of AI English Tutors and Tamil Nonverbal Communication Patterns for the Development of Culturally Adaptive AI tools in ESL Context Sebarajah, A. Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered English tutoring is a paradigm shift in English as a Second Language (ESL). It is an AI-centred teaching and learning approach rather than a teacher- or student-centred approach for Tamil speaking ESL learners and teachers. The AI tutors facilitate training for the target groups to communicate verbally and nonverbally like native speakers. Though AI tutors are an effective tool for improving verbal communication among learners and teachers, the cultural nonverbal communication system would be affected as the AI-powered tutors are designed based on Western communicative norms and communication practices. This creates a significant cultural gap for Tamil ESL learners whose communicative behaviours are deeply influenced by indigenous cultural traditions and performance arts such as Bharatanatyam. This study aims to comparatively investigate the nonverbal communication patterns embedded in AI English tutors and Tamil nonverbal communication practices derived from Bharatanatyam in order to contribute to the development of culturally adaptive AI tools for ESL contexts. The study specifically examines the extent to which current AI English tutors incorporate culturally diverse facial expressions, gestures, eye movements, and emotional communication patterns relevant to Tamil learners. A qualitative comparative research design was employed for the study. Ten AI English tutoring systems were purposively selected and analysed using multimodal discourse analysis and nonverbal communication frameworks. The communicative behaviours of these AI tutors were compared with Tamil nonverbal communication patterns referenced through the Bharatanatyam concept of Abhinaya, including Mukhabhinaya (facial expressions), Netrabhinaya (eye expressions), gestures (Mudras), head movements, eyebrow movements, and body posture. Also, the analysis combined the Navarasa framework, which classifies nine cultural and emotional expressions such as Shringara (love), Hasya (Joy), Karuna (sandness), Raudra (anger), Veera (courage), Bhayanaka (fear), Bibhatsa (disgust), Adbhuta (wonder), and Shanta (peace). The findings of the research revealed that almost all the existing AI English Tutors consisted of limited Western-oriented facial expressions like broad smiling, sustained eye contact, frowning for anger, and raised eyebrows for surprise and visible facial tension for disagreement. While these expressions support basic emotional interaction, the AI tutors demonstrated limited incorporation of culturally nuanced Tamil nonverbal communication features, which are commonly represented in Bharatanatyam traditions, such as respectful downward gazes, side glances, subtle eyebrow movements, controlled emotional expressions, head tilting, gentle nodding, and culturally contextualised emotional transitions were largely absent or underrepresented within the analysed AI English tutors. The study emphasises that an AI English Tutoring system without Tamil cultural nonverbal communication patterns may contribute to cultural incongruence in an AI-centred ESL learning context. Therefore, the study newly propose and conceptualize a culturally adaptive framework for the creation of a ‘Tamil AI English Tutor’ as a paradigm shift towards facilitating Tamil ESL learners while preserving the indigenous communicative identities, acknowledging the diverse, and evolving concept of Englishes. In addition, this research contributes to the fields of AI-assisted language learning, applied linguistics, intercultural communication and human-computer interaction by introducing a culturally responsive framework for designing AI education technologies for ESL context. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z 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