Guest Editors

Background

The use of technology in education has a long history, and English Language Teaching (ELT) has often found itself in the vanguard. The Language Labs of the 1950s may be gone, but since its emergence in the 1980s Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) has come to encompass a plurality of terms in more recent teaching, learning and research. Areas of interest have included distance learning and telecasting, hybrid classrooms, blended learning, learner autonomy, informal learning and automatic feedback platforms particularly for automatic writing evaluation (AWE) among others. More recently, generative Artificial Intelligence is having an as yet unmeasured impact on language learning and ELT in particular. As ubiquitous computing means few classrooms are device-free, and the rise of English language medium instruction (EMI) in higher education raises the importance of the English language, ELT finds itself at a key junction where theory, practice and technology collide.

This Special Issue will examine this junction of ELT within Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) research and practice. We invite papers focusing on how technology is being actively employed in ELT, whether face-to-face or remotely, in English for Academic Purposes (EAP), English for Specific Purposes (ESP), English as a Second Language (ESOL) or any other context where technology is used in the teaching and assessment of English language. We are especially interested in papers with strong theoretical and practical backgrounds that will contribute to both ELT and TEL in an international context.

The aim of Studies in Technology Enhanced Learning is provide a lively forum allowing debate and reflection on a wide range of issues connected to TEL in a broad range of contexts. This Special Issue on ELT and TEL will reference the ‘critical’, ‘contextualised’ and ‘capacity-building’ aspects of the journal’s Aims and Scope.

You may be new to the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning, or a long-term associate, but we strongly encourage those of you with current or former experience in ELT to contribute.

Scope of papers

We welcome contributions of papers from across the range of educational contexts; across the disciplinary, political and geographical spectrum; and from established scholars and newer researchers, including PhD students. In the spirit of STEL’s aims and scope, we do not wish to prescribe the content of any papers.

Topics and areas of submissions might include, but are not limited to:

• The use of TEL in ELT classrooms in face-to-face teaching, where English language is the medium of instruction.

• The use of TEL in ELT classrooms in distance online teaching and assessment, including blended and hybrid classes.

• TEL in ELT for academic and specific purposes, where TEL might make specific contributions to content learning as well as language learning.

• TEL in ELT in autonomous and informal settings.

• TEL in ELT assessment

• ELT and Artificial Intelligence

Paper types

We envisage that papers might come in a range of lengths and formats. When submitting your proposal please indicate the kind of paper you wish to contribute. You may wish to specify one of the categories below.

• Synthesis paper (6,000-12,000 words).

• Standard paper (4,000-8,000 words).

• Commentary (2,000-4,000 words).

• Book review (1,000-3,000 words).

All articles will be double-blind peer-reviewed, apart from clearly labelled editorials and invited commentaries. Articles will be distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0).

Submission instructions and provisional timeline

Please submit a provisional title and abstract (200-500 words), with authors and affiliations, by email to Rob Miles ([email protected]).

Key timings are:

• Proposals can be submitted at any time until 31 August 2024.

• Authors will be notified of acceptance, with brief editorial comments, no longer than one month from the date of proposal submission receipt by the guest editors.

• First drafts of papers can be submitted at any time until 31 October 2024.

• Peer reviews will be returned approximately one month from the date of paper submission receipt by the guest editors.

• Revised manuscripts are due one month after the review is returned to the authors.

• If major revisions are needed, then peer reviews will be returned approximately one month from the date of paper submission receipt by the guest editors.

• Once major or minor revisions are completed, authors will receive typeset versions for checking approximately one month from the date of final manuscript submission.

• Publication will continue through 2024, as soon as the typeset version is checked and accepted by the editor-in-chief of the journal.