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Dr. Vivimarie VanderPoorten Medawattegedera

Senior Lecturer in English, Department of Language Studies

Senior Lecturer (Gr. I)

Dept. of Language Studies
  • Central Campus, 1st floor, HSS Building
  • Office: 112881356, Ext: 356
  • vvand@ou.ac.lk

I served as Head of Department of the Department of language studies from 2013-2016. I currently teach courses on language, literature and linguistics and am involved in the teaching, writing course material and evaluation for the BA Honours in English and English language Teaching programme  as well as the Diploma in English Language and Literature (DELL), and have been course director and material writer for English language support courses offered by the university. I am a visiting lecturer at the University of Colombo teaching on their MA in English Studies programme, and at the Post Graduate Institute of English (PGIE) on their MA programmes. I am a visiting lecturer at the English and Linguistics Department of the University of Sri Jayawardenapura where I teach a course in creative writing. I am also a poet and have conducted many creative writing workshops in Sri Lanka and abroad. I appreciate my students being very interactive in my classes, and value dialogic teaching approaches.

Bilingual Education, Gender and Language, Medium of Instruction issues and Language Policy

Bilingual Education, Second Language Acquisition, Gender and Discourse, Open and Distance learning

Programme Coordination:
BA in English and English Language Teaching (Level 5)

  • Popularizing English language poetry in Sri Lanka: Some current practices. In Harshana
    Rambukwella Krishantha Fedricks and Piyal Kariyawasam (eds) Sahithya (Special Issue) 2020. Battaramulla: Department of Cultural Affairs
  • Balanced Women and Kissing Frogs: Some thoughts on Feminist issues in the writing of three
    contemporary Sri Lankan female poets. In Sadesa (Department of Cultural Affairs,
    Battaramulla) Issue 1 2020
  • Representing Women “Our Way”: An English Language Teaching Television Programme in Sri Lanka  in Society and Culture in South Asia (Volume. 4 Issue 1) January 2018
  • Kaduwa or Manne? Issues and tensions related to bilingual education policy in Sri Lanka. OUSL Journal Volume 8 (2015)
  • “A Microscope Under Any Other Name” – Code Switching in the English – Medium Science Classroom: An Investigation of Two Schools in Sri Lanka. Vistas Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences Volume 7 & 8 (20011/2012) pp. 239 – 257
  • “International Language Assessment and Local Performance: the case of the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine”. (With R. Raheem, G. Miththapala) OUSL Journal Volume 4 (2007)
  • Teaching Literature in ESL Contexts: Some Issues related to Interpretation (with D. Devendra) in English in the Multilingual Environment. Hemamala Ratwatte and Sreemali Herath (Eds.) (2006) Colombo: SLELTA
  • Gender Interaction and Performance at Oral Proficiency Tests: An investigation of ESL students at the Open University of Sri Lanka  (2005) in Gender Society and Change Colombo: CENWOR
  • Which English to Teach?: A study of English Teachers Attitudes to Sri Lankan English (with D. Devendra) in Innovation in ELT (Ed.s) Ryhana Raheem and Amy Hamlyn Colombo: 2004, The British Council
  • The Effect of Discourse Markers on Academic Listening: An Investigation of University students listening to lectures in the English Medium. (2003) in VISTAS Vol. 2 (Journal of the Faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences and Education, OUSL)

Ongoing Research:

  • Bilingual Education and the Dialogic Classroom Dialogic Feedback and ODL students performance
  • Non-Completion among OUSL BA (English) undergraduates
  • Translanguaging ideology in Sri Lankan Music videos
  • English, humour and Anxiety in the translanguaging era
  • Editor, Options No. 47 (Jan-June 2013) – Magazine of the Women and Media Collective. ISSN 13915673
  • Editor, Options No. 48 (June – December 2013) Magazine of the Women and Media Collective
  • “Learning the meaning of Citizenship” in OPTIONS (No. 43, Ed. by Sharni Jayawardena) – January 2011
  • “Nothing Prepares You” – Collection of poems – Inscript, Colombo; 2007, (Winner, Gratiaen Prize, 2007)
  • “Stitch Your Eyelids Shut” -Collection of poems – Akna, Colombo; 2010, – (Winner, State Literary Award)
  • Borrowed Dust  – Collection of Poems Sarasavi Publishers, Colombo 2017 (Shortlisted for the 2016 Gratiaen Prize)
  • MA in Teaching English as a Second Language – Post Graduate Institute of English “A Content Analysis of Cultural Dimensions in an approach to International English Textbooks”
  • MA in Teaching English as a Second Language – Code Switching and ESL pedagogy – Evaluation of Bilingual teacher training programmes
  • -MA in Teaching English as a Second Language – Learner Autonomy and SLA – Collaborative learning and University Students SLA
  • PhD Supervision for University of Colombo Faculty of Graduate Studies –  “Target Language Affordances in Sri Lankan English as a Second Language Classrooms: A Case Study of Samanthurai Zone”
  • MA in English Studies – University of Colombo “A study of gender and language use in Sri Lankan informal conversations in English”
  • MA in English Studies – University of Colombo – Gender-based (Para)linguistic Features in Computer-Mediated Communication: A Case Study on (Para)linguistic Features used by a Selected Sample of Sri Lankan Users of Social Networks
  • MA in Teaching English as a Second Language – PGIE Cooperative Language Learning as the sole teaching method of an Adult ESL Low proficiency Classroom

Member – Advisory Board, World Journal of Gender and Literature    ISSN: 2349-1620

Member – Sri Lanka Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies

Member – Asia TEFL (Teaching of English as a Foreign Language) Member – English Writers Cooperative (EWC) Member –

Member – Board of Study for the Teaching of English as a Second Language – Post Graduate Institute of English

Member – University Senate

Fulbright Advanced Research and Lecturing Award 2017/2018 – University of Texas at El Paso, USA

World Bank (TETD Project) Scholarship for MA Studies in Northern Ireland, UK

Asian Development Bank (DEMP Project) Scholarship for Doctoral studies

Grataien Award 2007 for Creative Writing in English

SAARC Poet Award – 2009

State Literary Award 2010 for English Poetry

Godage National Literary Award for English Poetry 2017

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