Decolonizing English through Open Book Quizzes: Learner Perspectives of Trincomalee Campus

Abstract

English has become a denationalized language which no longer is a property of the tiny island England. Even though English education has been implemented through Macaulay’s ideology of creating a class to stand-in between them and the masses through employing traditional testing tools to serve their paradigm, English no-longer plays that same designated role at present. In this postcolonial era decolonizing English has become one of its praxis, where new testing tools need to be evolved alongside the traditional ones and one such tool is the open book quiz employed for fiction, since open book quiz facilitates a very modern concept of testing the eidetic memory. This paper compares traditional examinations and learning experiences with Open Book Quizzes (OBQ) focusing on the role of the facilitator and its role in developing the respondents’ analytical and critical thinking skills aligning with Bloom’s Taxonomy. The quantitative method was employed with the help of a structured close-ended questioner. The sample is selected out of four classes of undergraduates of B.A., in Languages with regard to the course work ‘Introduction to Fiction’ (LANG 2133). Among them only 60.41% of the respondents preferred OBQs but 70.83% view it as a dynamic and effective assessment tool with regard to Internal Assessment or Continuous Assessment. This paper proposes that OBQs can prompt an efficient heutagogical approach. This study is grounded in a realistic approach comprising former students, present students, and lecturers and takes into considerations such as 1) preparation for examination, 2) experiences during examination and 3) post-examination reflections.