I wrote recently about recent innovations by one of my students from Affiliated University College days, Mr. Abeyweera, and what he accomplished under the patronage of the most innovative Vice-Chancellor of this century, Chandra Embuldeniya who started the Uva Wellassa University. But it occurred to me then that I should also write about innovations of an earlier period, when the University of Sri Jayewardenepura was what Arjuna Aluvihare, as Chairman of the University Grants Commission, memorably described to a visiting World Bank delegation as the cutting edge of the university system.
I have mentioned previously Prof. Wickramaarachchi who started an English Medium only degree in accountancy there. But I should also note how English Language Teaching at that university was spearheaded by one of the most innovative members of its English Language Teaching Unit, Oranee Jansz, who long before the term became fashionable understood the importance of developing soft skills in students. She collaborated with me on the then pre-University General English Language Training programme, which Arjuna Aluvihare asked us to coordinated, and I do not think any GELT student of the nineties will forget the drama competitions she introduced, for dramatized projects, and how these helped them to learn and think and explain, gaining confidence and rich communication skills.
Oranee was initially not happy when, having joined Sri Jayewardenepura, I was asked to supervise the work of its English Teaching Unit, for she was a strong believer in the autonomy of those units and resented what she saw as the primacy given to English Departments at Universities. Unfortunately the other ladies of the Unit were not at all appreciative of what Oranee was doing, for her work ethic unlike theirs was commensurate with the status she wanted for the Unit. When its head resigned and the then acting Vice-Chancellor thought of Oranee to replace her, they were fearful that she would make them work harder and so reacted adversely and the former head resumed the position to ensure she was not put in charge of them.
For her work ethic was substantially stronger than theirs, as I noted when practically every head of department asked me, as I joined, if I could allocate her for their students. But this was forestalled for, as an outlet for her talents, the Acting Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Mahinda Palihawadana, asked her to take charge of English for the Medical Faculty that Jayewardenepura had just started.
Her imaginative approach there meant that USJP medical students were accepted much sooner by the medical hierarchy than graduates from other new medical faculties. Historically, the medical establishment in this country has belittled any new medical faculty, and in turn, when that faculty gained wider acceptance, it joined the old guard in belittling new ones. Kelaniya and Ruhuna and Sri Jayewardenepura and Rajarata have suffered such persecution in turn, though perhaps that mentality has now changed for the Sabaragamuwa Medical Faculty has not had to face similar belittling.
It was I think Oranee’s innovations when she was given charge of English for medical students that ensured the swift acceptance of USJP graduates, as compared for instance to long-lasting prejudice against those from say Ruhuna and Rajarata. Underlying her success was the fact that she was a graduate in science from Peradeniya, though she had then switched to ELT and qualified in that. Many of the others in the ELTU were simply trained teachers, while almost all of those with degrees only had English as one subject in a General Degree. Though none of them had an academic bent, they thirsted to be academics, and most of them had a very theoretical approach to their lessons, with the students given little opportunity to practice through interactions. Oranee was very different, and believed in encouraging students to talk, and also to think, in an early commitment to the soft skills that most of those in tertiary education took ages to recognize were an essential component of any qualification in higher education.
Her work ethic meant she was always with her students, and made sure the Medical Faculty staff she supervised followed her lead, which was unusual for many of the ELTU ladies who preferred to gossip in the staff room rather than work in their classrooms. They would abandon them on little or no excuse, claiming students had not come, or that they had been given written work, which they expected the students to do without supervision, with no one there to help them in case of difficulties. Of course there were some others who worked hard and well, but of the senior staff Oranee stood out. When she was given charge of an area, she had regular staff meetings and monitored progress, which was not something the other senior ladies who were in charge of particular departments would have dreamt of.
And her staff responded admirably to expectations, from the older Tamil gentleman whom others in the Unit scorned, as a possible Tiger – for those were the days when USJP was a hotbed of prejudice – to the youngsters from the Pasdunrata College of Education whom the more sophisticated ladies of the ELTU scorned as not being first language speakers of English.
I appreciated all this, and we soon got on very well. I believe she soon realized that I was genuine in my belief that English Language Teaching Units should have better recognition, and that I was not a proponent of the superiority of English Departments as compared to them. That was the case at most other universities, and I believe I helped to overcome this when I agitated that the Units be converted into departments. That has now happened, with concomitant self-confidence for their staff, but in the old days there was much resentment at what was seen as the patronising attitude of English Departments, which was not helped by someone from those Departments often being appointed to head the ELTU, often someone who knew nothing about English Language Teaching and cared little about it.
So by the time we started to collaborate on the pre-university General English Language Training (GELT) programme we were good friends, and not only worked well together but also learned a lot from each other. And though initially she was not too pleased when Arjuna added me on, she soon realized that it helped that the resentment that academics in the field might have displayed with regard to someone they looked on as a mere instructor could not arise when I was involved.
The work was divided up in a way that pleased both of us, and she had a free rein for all the imaginative plans she had for making English Teaching exciting and immensely attractive to students, with a range of exercises in creative thinking.
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