Abstract:
Many in the academic field believe that urban based learners perform
well in English language and their English language proficiency seems to be reasonable,
while low proficiency and poor performance in English could be observed among the
majority of the rural learners at South Eastern University of Sri Lanka. This issue has
become a major challenge for the University community at South Eastern University of
Sri Lanka, and so the author was persuaded to undertake this research to establish the
truth. This research aims to investigate and establish the truth of this consideration and
find out to what extent English Language proficiency is lower in rural areas.
This research adopts primary and secondary data using mix methodologies
(qualitative and quantitative): 139 questionnaires were administrated among
undergraduates from three universities and 99 teachers' questionnaires were also
administrated from English trainee teachers in in-service teacher training colleges using
Convenient Random Sampling. A brief questionnaire was also administrated to collect
data from selected professionals followed by telephone interviews. The above collected
data from different sources were triangulated.
This research found out the root causes of low level English language
proficiency in rural areas; especially in the north-east region which was considerably
affected by the long lasting war. This research also found out the rural and urban
learners' attitude towards languages and investigates other relevant factors, especially
how the long lasting war affected the English Language teaching and learning in the
North-East region. In addition this research suggests some possible solution to
overcome these problems and improve the English language proficiency in rural areas,
especially in the South Eastern region.
