Dear Readers,
This issue rounds out Volume 26 with a collection of carefully refereed articles on topics such as intercultural awareness and competence, writing, focus on form, CLIL, vocabulary acquisition, online instruction and the need for student self-regulation during the pandemic.
The assessment of TESL-EJ and other journals relies heavily on the quality of the papers, as manifested by the number of times they are referenced in other journals historically. Thus we are raising the bar on articles that we accept for review by declining those that focus on a single country without generalizable implications for instructors in other regions. While it is natural for authors to focus their research on their local context, many of the submissions that we receive fail to connect their findings with similar phenomena in other cultural contexts. To this end we have engaged one of our editors, Nicky Bremner, as our new Submissions Editor. Before new manuscripts are passed on to the “review stage,” he will determine how well they meet our basic guidelines.
Below are the statistics generated by our OJS submissions software, showing our editorial activity during 2022.
Editorial Statistics for Year 2022
| Category | |
| Submissions Received | 302 |
| Submissions Accepted | 35 |
| Submissions Declined | 289 |
| Submissions Declined (Desk Reject) | 228 |
| Submissions Declined (After Review) | 61 |
| Submissions Published | 41 |
| Days to First Editorial Decision | 4 |
| Days to Accept | 179 |
| Days to Reject | 7 |
| Acceptance Rate | 5% |
| Rejection Rate | 95% |
| Desk Reject Rate | 83% |
| After Review Reject Rate | 12% |
The “Submissions Published” figure above represents only those articles that went through our standard submission and review system. In addition to these we published another 10 articles in our Special Issue on Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in Language Education plus 9 commentaries on them; the On the Internet section; as well as the book and media reviews. As you can see, TESL-EJ’s acceptance rate is a mere 5%. We hope that the authors of future submissions will read our submission guidelines carefully to assure that their work meets our minimum criteria for passing on to the reviewers.
Special Issue. we are happy to announce yet another Special Issue, this one on a very current and important topic, “Between Indisposition and Perseverance: Disrupted Language Teacher Identities in Times of Uncertainty” with guest editors: Hyunjin Jinna Kim and Huseyin Uysal. If you are interested in submitting a paper, please see the Call for Papers at this link. The deadline for abstract submission is April 1, 2023.
TESOL Scholarship Fund for Vance Stevens. We mentioned the passing of our former On the Internet column editor, Vance Stevens, in our last issue. Now, a scholarship in his honor is being established through International TESOL. If you wish to contribute towards the funding of the scholarship, please see the information on this Facebook page.
Passages. We regret to announce that Keith M. Graham (National Taiwan Normal University) is stepping down as a Book Review editor. He reports that new responsibilities at his “real” job no long leaves time for other duties. Fortunately there are two other very capable book review editors, J. Dylan Burton (Michigan State University) and Junjie Gavin Wu (Shenzhen University), who will carry on.
Thanks to recent reviewers. Continuing our new policy, we thank the reviewers of all submissions that had reached a decision since our last issue – regardless of whether the paper was accepted or declined. We are grateful to the following scholars, some of whom have reviewed two or more papers during the current period: Ahmed Bashir, Amanda Sugimoto, Amira Albagshi, Arezou Maleki, Asli Lidice Gokturk Saglam, Azran Azmee Kafia, Boudjemaa Dendenne, Chahrazed Mirza, Colin William Campbell, Dale Brown, David Berry, David Imamyartha, Dodi Mulyadi, Duy Van Vu, Fahimeh Marefat, Ghazi Ghaith, Gina Paschalidou, Grant Eckstein, Hilda Freimuth, Ismail Xodabande, Joan Rubin, Joey M. Villanueva, Jofen Wu Han, Kuang Li, Madhubala Bava Harji, Mandana Arfa-Kaboodvand, Manh Hieu Do, Mary Lou Vercellotti, Mochammad Ircham Maulana, Musa Nushi, Nasser Oroujlou, Nobuhiro Kamiya, Peter Ilic, Rasoul Mohammad Hosseinpur, Reda Elmabruk, Richard Barwell, Ryan Spring, Semahat Aysu, Suwarno, Svetlana Koltovskaia, Testiana Deni Wijayatiningsih, Thinh Le, Vijayakumar Chintalapalli and Yeşim Bektas-Çetinkaya.
Best,
Thomas N. Robb, Ph.D.
For the editorial team