Deepa Ellepola

Profile

I worked as a teacher trainer in Balangoda Education Zone and a lecturer at Mahaweli National College of Education in Sri Lanka. I taught Guidance and Counselling, English and ELT methodology for ESL teacher trainees. In 2008, I worked as a master trainer for “English as a life skill” programme to train all the ESL teachers in the province. In 2018, I found another opportunity to train ESL teachers and teacher trainers all over the country under the iTESL (Improving Teacher Education in Sri Lanka) programme conducted by the Ministry of Education and the British Council, Sri Lanka.

In 2013, I won the Hornby Trust scholarship to do my Masters at University of Leeds and obtained a merit and a distinction for the dissertation. As a Hornby scholar, I presented at ITEFL conference in Harrogate and MA TESOL conference at the University of Hull, in 2014. I started my PhD in 2020.

Currently, I work as a teaching assistant in the School of Psychology and in the School of Education. 

Research interests

As an ESL teacher trainer for more than 12 years, I am interested in doing research related to professional development of ESL teachers and application of new knowledge in classroom practice.

Qualifications

• MA in TESOL (Teacher Education) University of Leeds
• MA in Linguistics (University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka)
• Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching English Language and Literature (University of Jayawardenepura (Sri
• BA in English (University of Jayawardenepura, Sri Lanka)

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Language Education