Dr T A Pushparajah

Contact:

Department of English Language Teaching (DELT) 

University of Kelaniya

Sri Lanka  

K-05 Building 

Email: anton@kln.ac.lk 

Educational Qualifications:

• PhD in Education. University of Leicester, UK, 2020 – 2025

• Thesis: Examining the Effect of Test-Taker Personality on Performance in L2 Speaking Tests

• Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA), University of Cambridge, UK, 2017

• Master of Arts in Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2013- 2015

• Master of Arts in International Relations, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2009-2011

• Bachelor of Arts in English (Hons), University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, 2003- 2008

Awards & Grants 

• World Bank/ AHEAD Doctoral Scholarship- 2020-2024

• Travel Grant to present at EALTA conference in Helsinki, University of Leicester (2023)

• Early Career Research Grant- The IAFOR European Conference on Education, UK (2023)

• Best Paper Award – 4th International Conference on Finance and Management, Sri Lanka (2009)

• Gold Medalist of Prof. Thurairajah memorial award, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, (2006)

Teaching & Supervision

I currently teach undergraduate and postgraduate courses related to language testing and assessment, and other applied linguistics courses at the Department of English Language Teaching, University of Kelaniya and the Postgraduate Institute of English (PGIE), The Open University of Sri Lanka.

I supervise students undertaking language testing and assessment, and AI integration into ESL teaching, materials development, assessment, and feedback related research at undergraduate, Masters’ and MPhil/PhD levels.

Since 2023, I have supervised postgraduate candidates from the following programs:

•  Department of English Language Teaching, University of Kelaniya

• Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Kelaniya

• Post-Graduate Institute of English, Open University

I am happy to supervise students using mixed methods and quantitative research methods in the following areas: language testing and assessment, teacher professional development, language and education policy, and integration of AI into ESL teaching, materials development, assessment and feedback.  

Publications and Conference Presentations 

1. Pushparajah, T. A., & Manobavan, M. (2009). Martin Wickremasinghe’s perspectives on strategic thinking towards attaining (business) goals- a case study of the human re-source potentials of the key characters portrayed in the novel MadolDoova, Internation-al Research Conference on Management and Finance, Faculty of Management and Fi-nance, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. ISBN 978-955-9021-7

2. Pushparajah, T. A. (2008). A multi-faceted aspect of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Unpublished BA Dissertation, University of Jaffna

3. Pushparajah, T. A. (2008). Globalisation and Contemporary Literature, Annual Research Conference of the Vavuniya Campus of the University of Jaffna, ISSN 1800-4911

4. Pushparajah, T. A. (2009), Sociological perspectives of contemporary Indian Literature with particular reference to Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Annual Research Conference of the Vavuniya Campus of the University of Jaffna, ISSN 1800-4911

5. Pushparajah, T. A., & Manobavan, M. (2009), Impacts of globalisation on the sociologi-cal makeup of contemporary literature and mass-media, Annual Research Conference of Sociological Association of Sri Lanka

6. Pushparajah, T. A.  (2010), Sociograms as scaffolding to teach literary texts in the sec-ondary and tertiary education, Sixth International SLELTA Conference, BMICH, Co-lombo, Sri Lanka

7. Pushparajah, T. A., & Manobavan, M. (2010). Using the war cum political strategies used in the Mahabarata as a paradigm to stimulate strategy formulation for business management – a mental modelling approach, 12th Annual Research Symposium of the Faculty of Graduate Studies of University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka

8. Pushparajah, T. A. (2011). Developmental barriers arising at the international levels to the access to quality water for human consumption at the local groups in Sri Lanka- a postcolonial approach, 2nd Biennial International Conference, Postcolonial Studies As-sociation, University of Birmingham, UK

9. Pushparajah, T. A. (2011). Representation and representability of Tamils in the post-war scenario, Annual Research Symposium of the University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka

10. Pushparajah, T. A. (2012). Integration of technology in the ESL classroom: perspective and challenges, 13th Annual Research Symposium of the Faculty of Graduate Studies of University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka

11. Pushparajah, T. A. (2013). Better Questions for Better Answers: A Strategy to Develop Critical Thinking and Communicative Skills among ESL learners, 14th Annual Re-search Symposium of the Faculty of Graduate Studies at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka

12. Pushparajah, T. A. (2013). Towards a Corpus-Based Identification of Sri Lankan Learn-er English: A Pilot Study Based on First-Year Undergraduate Writings at the University of Kelaniya, First National Conference on General Linguistics, University of Kelaniya

13. Pushparajah, T. A. (2014). Use of short videos to help ESL students to develop critical thinking, 6th International Conference on Language and Communication, Graduate School of Language and Communication, National Institute of Development Admin-istration, Bangkok, Thailand

14. Pushparajah, T. A. (2015). Changing assessment and pedagogical reconstruction in the English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms in Sri Lanka, International Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities (ICSSH 2015), Colombo, Sri Lanka.

15. Pushparajah, T. A. (2015). Information modifiers which prevent post-war capacity de-velopment, 6th International on Heritage as Prime Mover in History, Culture and Reli-gion of South and Southeast Asia, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. 

16. Pushparajah, T.A. (2015), This is their education, their learning and their future: Why not get their involvement in the assessment?, International Conference on Language Learning & Teaching (ICoLLT), Centre for Modern Languages and Human Sciences, University of Malaysia Pahang, Malaysia 

17. Pushparajah, T.A. (2015), Washback effect of English for Humanities and Social Sci-ences on first year undergraduates’ behaviour towards learning English at the University of Kelaniya and its macro level impact, International Conference on Languages (ICL), Faculty of Languages & Communication, Sultan Zainal Abidin University, Malaysia 

18. Pushprajah, T. A. (2019), Is language assessment literacy overlooked or ignored in in-service teacher education in Sri Lanka? The 17th ASIA TEFL & 6th FLLT International Conference, Bangkok, Thailand

19. Pushparajah, T. A. (2023). Research into the effect of test-taker personality on perfor-mance in the university test of English Language (UTEL) in Sri Lanka. Paper presented at the European Association for Language Testing and Assessment (EALTA) Confer-ence, Helsinki, Finland.

20. Pushparajah, T. A. (2023). Numbers don’t lie unless they do! The effect of test-taker personality on performance in paired oral test. Paper presented at the School of Educa-tion Research Conference, University of Leicester.

21. Pushparajah, T. A. (2023). What words can tell which numbers cannot? Measuring In-teractional Competence in Oral Proficiency Test. Paper presented at The IAFOR Euro-pean Conference on Education, London, UK.

22. Pushparajah, T. A. (2023). To be or not to be: Is Conversation Analysis (CA) a viable methodological option for social science researchers to analyse multimodal data? The workshop was presented at the Postgraduate Summer School of Education, University of Leicester, UK.