Dr. Romola Rassool

PhD in Sociolinguistics (Melbourne, Australia) , MA in TESOL (Teachers College, Columbia, USA) , BA in English (Kelaniya, Sri Lanka)
Post Graduate Institute of English

Dr. Romola Rassool has been the Director of the Postgraduate Institute of English at the Open University of Sri Lanka since 2022. She has over 25 years of experience as a lecturer in English as a Second Language (ESL) and in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) at the Department of English Language Teaching (DELT), University of Kelaniya. She has taught sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, academic writing and business communication for several postgraduate programs in the state university system of Sri Lanka. From 2018 to 2022, she served as the Senior Academic Expert of the Accelerating Higher Education Expansion and Development (AHEAD) project which was funded by the World Bank and implemented by the Ministry of Education of Sri Lanka.

Dr. Rassool’s primary research interests are in the fields of preservation of the lesser-known languages of Sri Lanka and Academic Literacy. In addition, she is interested in issues related to language policy and minority politics in Sri Lanka.

Programme Coordinator – Postgraduate Diploma in Bilingual Education (PGDip BE)

  1. Mahawattha, N., & Rassool, R. (2023). “A smooth transition or a giant leap?” The challenges posed by the transition from secondary education to higher education in relation to EMI in Sri Lanka. [Paper publication]. In Ernesto Macaro & Heath Rose
    (Eds.). Special issue: English medium instruction: Areas of research needing urgent attention, Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching (SSLLT). https://doi.org/10.14746/ssllt.38276.
  2. Mahawattha, N., Rassool, R. & Coorey, R. V. (2023). The practice of Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Developing Academia Literacies in an English Medium Degree PrOgramme in Sri Lankan Higher Education. In L. Buckingham, J. Dong & F. K. Jiang
    [Eds.], Interdisciplinary Practices in Academia: Writing, Teaching and Assessment (pp. 110- 128). Routledge.
  3. Parakrama, A., Navaz, A. M. M., & Rassool, R. (2021). English Language Teaching: A historical present. In P. de Silva, K. N. O. Dharmadasa, A. Tilakaratne, C. Nahallage, W. Hewamanage (Eds.) Beyond Boundaries: One Hundred Years of Humanities and Social Sciences in Sri Lankan Universities. (pp. 197-223). University Grants Commission, Sri Lanka.
  4. Rassool, R. (2022). Preserving the lesser-known languages: The case of Sri Lanka. In Abbi A. & Vatsyayan, K. (Eds). Linguistic diversity in South and Southeast Asia (pp. 73-86). India International Centre, New Delhi, India.
  5. Rassool, R. (2013). Issues of power and privilege in the maintenance of Sri Lanka Malay: A sociolinguistic analysis. In S. Nordhoff (Ed.), The genesis of Sri Lanka Malay: A case of extreme language contact (pp. 121-145). Brill.