Rohana Fernando
Creator of O/L Literature Help · Founder, RCF English and RCF Publications
An English teacher and lecturer of several decades' standing, who has devoted his career to making English and English Literature clearer, more practical and more accessible to students, teachers and independent learners.
Academic and professional background
Academic scholarship in English and linguistics, professional training in language teaching, and several decades of classroom experience.
Degree in English
University of Peradeniya
Master of Arts in Linguistics
University of Kelaniya
TESOL qualification
University of Peradeniya
Associate Member, CALSDA
Colombo Association of Language Skills and Dramatic Art
Why this matters for the notes on this site
- A degree in English supports the literature teaching: the reading of poetry, drama and fiction, and the kind of close attention to a text that a good Literature answer needs.
- Advanced study in linguistics supports the language teaching: an understanding of how English actually works, rather than a list of rules to be memorised.
- TESOL training supports the teaching of English to learners for whom it is not a first language, which describes most of the students this site is built for.
- Several decades in classrooms supply what qualifications alone cannot: knowledge of where learners actually go wrong, and of what genuinely helps them.
About O/L Literature Help
O/L Literature Help began about fifteen years ago as a small website of notes for G.C.E. O/L English Literature students. Over the years it has helped students and teachers across Sri Lanka prepare for the examination.
Its notes include line-by-line analyses of the prescribed poems, original Sinhala translations of poems such as "To the Nile", "A Bird Came Down the Walk" and "The Eagle", interactive quizzes, and a large collection of past papers and model papers. Some of the analyses first appeared in articles published in the Sunday Observer.
Today the site is being renewed as a complete O/L study resource. Each text is getting a full RCF Study Guide that follows five steps: Learn, Understand, Practise, Answer and Revise, with exam-style questions and model answers based on the official marking scheme. The original notes remain available alongside each guide.
Teaching today
Rohana Fernando conducts mainly online classes in English and Literature through RCF Online Academy, sharing the knowledge and practical experience of a long academic and professional career with learners wherever they live.
RCF online Literature classes →
Books and study guides
He writes the books and study guides published through RCF Publications, including O/L Poetry Made Easy and O/L Prose & Drama Made Easy.
The qualifications and memberships listed on this page are the ones held. O/L Literature Help does not claim any qualification, award, appointment or approval that it does not hold, and makes no claim of government endorsement or official status.