It has been argued that any classroom methodology to be appropriate it needs to be
‘culture sensitive’ (Holliday, 1994). Further, it is also claimed that ‘culture sensitivity’
needs to be realized through ethnographic action research. This paper examines the
influence of western colonization on Education in Sri Lanka and as a result how different
‘school cultures’ developed. Next, based on the findings of observational case studies of
two schools the paper examines how the different school cultures provided opportunities
for learning English.
Finally, the implications of the different ‘school cultures’ on learning English is discussed
and the challenges for the future learning teaching process are identified.
