Ms. Sakunthala Dilrukshi is a Lecturer (Probationary) in Sri Lanka Technology Campus. She received the BA (Hons.) degree in English from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka, in 2017 and the MTESL (Master of Teaching English as a Second Language) degree from the Postgraduate Institute of English, of the Open University of Sri Lanka in 2023. She is currently reading for the MA(TESL) (Master of Arts in Teaching English as a Second Language) at the same institute, focusing her dissertation on Maldivian English, being the first scholar from Sri Lanka to address the particular notable research gap in the study of South Asian Englishes.
Prior to her current role, she has served as an English Language Teacher at Vidura National College, Colombo in 2017 and as a Research Assistant attached to the IQAU at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura in the same year. In 2018, she has served as an English Language Instructor affiliated to the Faculty of Applied Sciences at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, and upon being selected by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Maldives, she has then served as an ESL teacher in the Republic of Maldives from 2019 to 2022.
Ms. Dilrukshi is also an accomplished writer who has won several national awards for her English literary work; mainly poetry, and she was also a scholarship-holder to represent Sri Lanka in Japan for the JENESYS 2017 programme. She has also excelled in languages such as Japanese, and has achieved international recognition for her proficiency, securing prizes while representing Sri Lanka. She has been an active participant in both Sri Lankan and international academic conferences and workshops.
Having professional and academic experience related to English language teaching in both local and foreign bases, along with experience as a Visiting Lecturer, Ms. Dilrukshi started serving as a Lecturer (Probationary) attached to the Center for Communication Skills Development (CCSD) at Sri Lanka Technology Campus since 2024. Her current research interests include ‘Language acquisition and second language learning,’ ‘Corpus linguistics,’ ‘Sociolinguistics of Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL),’ ‘World Englishes and their implications for English Language Teaching (ELT),’ ‘Comparative syntactic studies across languages,’ ‘Discourse analysis,’ ‘Methodologies and processes in ESL classroom teaching and learning’ and ‘Bilingual education and language policy in multilingual settings.’