Foreign Service Institute, 1998. — viii, 104 pages. — (Basic Course Series).
Basic Sinhala is a beginning course presented in three modules dealing with the writing system, conversation and grammar. The respective titles are:
The course is intended for use with the help of a Sinhala-speaking instructor. The student must start with Module I in order to gain the grasp of Sinhala writing necessary to use the other two modules since the Sinhala material in those modules is presented only in its natural written form. The conversation and grammar modules are intended to be used in conjunction with each other, General Conversation containing systematic cross-references to Sinhala Structures.
The principal author of Basic Sinhala is Bonnie Graham MacDougall. Dr. MacDougall has had extensive experience in the language teaching field at Cornell, at the Foreign Service Institute where she served as an intern in the School of Language Studies in 1966, and with the Peace Corps. She has had extended visits or residence in Sri Lanka in 1964-65, 1968, 1978 and 1979. Her work which eventually developed into Basic Sinhala started with a Peace Corps contract in 1967 for a set of Sinhala training materials which were first used in a training program for Peace Corps Volunteers at Fresno State College.
Parts of the preliminary version remained in use in language classes in the U. S. Embassy in Colombo through the years since 1968. Although incomplete and antiquated, they came closer to meeting the needs of the Embassy staff than any other textbooks available. In 1978, Dr. MacDougall expressed a willingness to refine and update the materials, and the Agency of International Development and the Foreign Service Institute agreed to fund the project jointly. Further, the Sri Lanka mission of AID agreed to prepare the camera copy and FSI agreed to publish it. Basic Sinhala in its present form is the product of this collaboration.
Dr. MacDougall has provided a preface or introduction to each module giving appropriate credit to the individuals and organizations contributing to its development. One item missing from these sections, however, is credit to the author herself for her professional competence, her leadership and her dedication in bringing Basic Sinhala to its present state of usefulness.