Humanities Undergraduate Research Symposium

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Author: search.filters.author.Madhusanka, N. G. D.

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    Enhance the Oral Skills of Chinese Learners in Sri Lanka through EDMODO Language Application
    (Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, 2021) Madhusanka, N. G. D.
    After several decades of development, Chinese Language Teaching in Sri Lanka has reached relative levels of advancement with a significantly diversified selection of teaching materials. However, amongst the teaching of the four basic Chinese language skills, the oral skills of beginner Chinese learners in Sri Lanka have been found to be weak and thus considered unsatisfactory to meet the rising demands of intercultural communication. Since traditional teaching methods have been deemed insufficient to develop the oral skills of learners, educators have been urged to provide students with 21st century skills that are geared towards creativity and critical thinking in order to generate new knowledge. Hence, the emergence of elearning and its Web 2.0 tools have begun to offer more opportunities in the areas of language application, while encouraging independent learning. In view of the potential of this learning style, Edmodo; a social learning platform, could be implemented as an effective tool in the classroom to improve Chinese oral skills. Accordingly, this research aims to develop a web-based learning model using Edmodo as a self-directed learning tool to develop Chinese oral skills. To examine the effectiveness of this model, a comparative study was conducted between two groups of students in the Level II Chinese Honours degree program at the University of Kelaniya. Each group included twenty students, of which one group followed traditional face-to-face methods of learning, while the other used the Edmodo application for a period of five months as a platform for language learning. The results of this study revealed that students in the experimental group using Edmodo developed higher oral proficiency than their counterpart. Moreover, the former also acquired greater levels of motivation and self-confidence in learning Chinese oral communication. The findings of this study encourage Chinese language learners to benefit from the use of technology in language learning and strive for better academic performance.
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    A Study of Online Chinese Language Learning Anxiety among Undergraduate Students
    (Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, 2021) Silva, S. O. H.; Madhusanka, N. G. D.
    E-learning has been adopted globally as the alternative learning strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic to fill the academic gap that has been created by the existing reality of the pandemic due to nationwide closures. Learning a foreign language is one of the most challenging tasks. The transition from a face-to-face to an online learning environment makes it even more challenging. This paper intends to examine the anxiety in the Chinese language online learning experienced by Sri Lankan students at the University of Kelaniya. For this study, 50 Chinese majoring undergraduates from level-1 and level-2 were purposely chosen as the targeted group who were forced to stay at home and fully adhere to online learning. This seems unusual and unexpected for most of them, especially for those who are lacking experience of online learning and its required facilities. Using a socio-demographic questionnaire and focus-group discussion technique, this study aimed to investigate the factors behind language anxiety among the students in the online classroom. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze samples. The students experienced different sources of online language learning anxiety such as hesitation of communication, the anxiety of online lessons, fear of negative evaluation, and anticipatory anxiety. The findings suggested that language anxiety can originate from learners’ self-related cognition, Chinese language learning difficulties, the personality of learners, Chinese language culture, and the fear of losing self-identity. These pertinent findings may guide online learners to achieve academic success through online learning and cope with online learning by mitigating sources of anxiety.