The Journal of English Language Proficiency (JELAP)

JELAP is an academic peer-reviewed journal that focuses on advancing the field of English language education through the exploration of effective pedagogy, instructional methods, and language learning strategies. The journal serves as a platform for researchers, educators, and language practitioners to share their insights and findings on teaching and learning English, offering critical perspectives on both theoretical and practical aspects of English language proficiency. Its aim is to foster a deep understanding of how English can be taught and learned more effectively, particularly in diverse educational contexts, from primary education to higher education.

Manuscript Submission

Author Guidelines:

Manuscripts must be submitted electronically via JELAP’s online submission system. You will need to create an account or log in as an existing user. Submissions via email are not accepted.

Authors must strictly follow the submission guidelines of the journal. To submissions that do not adhere to the guidelines provided, they will be REJECTED. Please submit your article through the online submission of this journal by registering and account and login to the system.

Structure of the manuscript:

All articles must be written in English and should have an abstract between 200 to 250 words in length, followed by three to five keywords related to your article. Submissions should be between 4000-8000 (including abstract, table(s), figure(s) and references) in A4 size paper.

Title: the title should summarize the main idea or ideas of your paper; the title should be within 20 words maximum.

Author detail: include names of authors and their affiliation. Email is required for the corresponding author only. JELAP requires that authorship be based on the following four criteria:

  1. Substantial contributions to the idea or method of the research; or the collection, analysis, or interpretation of data for the research; AND
  2. Drafting the paper or revising it for important intellectual content; AND
  3. Final approval of the version to be submitted and published; AND
  4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the article (and research) in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Contributors who do not meet all 4 criteria for authorship above should be listed in acknowledgment, not as authors. Therefore, contributors doing acquisition of funding; general supervision of a research group or general administrative support; and writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading do not qualify for authorship. To prevent misconduct in authorship, JELAP only allows a maximum of seven authors for one article. Each author’s contribution to the article must be stated in the cover letter to be uploaded as a supplementary file into the OJS during article submission. We require that all co-authors be added to the metadata in the third step of article submission. Otherwise, they will not be included in the article when it is published. 

Abstract: concisely describe the content and scope of your paper and identify the objective(s), its methodology, and its findings, conclusions, or intended results.

Keywords: The words should capture the essence of your paper. Include the most relevant keywords that will help other authors find your paper. These words must be presented in alphabetical order and separated by commas.

Introduction: state your work’s objectives and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results. Explicitly state the literature gap, which signifies your research’s significance.

When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author’s information or opinions accurately and in your own words. Even when paraphrasing an author’s work, you still must provide a citation to that work. When directly quoting an author’s work, provide citation marks at the beginning till the end of the citation. The page number must be noted beside the author’s name and year of publication.

Literature Review: include the current knowledge, substantive findings, and theoretical and methodological contributions to your topic. A literature review surveys books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory and, by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated.

Method: provide sufficient detail to allow your work to be reproduced. This includes participants, location (if necessary), instrument(s), the technique of data collection, and the technique of data analysis. A reference should indicate methods already published; only relevant modifications should be described.

Results: present the results of your work. Use graphs and tables if appropriate, and summarize your main findings in the text. Do NOT discuss the results or speculate as to why something happened; that goes in the Discussion.

Discussion: highlight the most significant results, but do not repeat what has been written in the Results section. The purpose of the discussion is to interpret and describe the significance of your findings in light of what was already known about the research problem being investigated and to explain any new understanding or insights that emerged as a result of your study of the problem. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate.

Conclusion: provide the final words on the value of your analysis, research, or article. Limitations of your study should be addressed. Recommendations for future research related to your topic should also be mentioned.

Acknowledgments (optional): give credit to funding bodies and departments that have been of help during the project, for instance, by supporting it financially.

References: follow the APA 7 style.

All names/references mentioned in the text/article should be listed in the References section. Names not mentioned in the text/article should be removed from the References section.

Appendices (optional): if there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as Appendix A, Appendix B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1), and so on. Similarly, for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc. 

 Further guidelines are provided below.

Headings and subheadings should be presented as follows (provide a space between the headings and sub-headings):

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Subheading of the Content

1.1.1 Subheading of the content

Indent the first line of every paragraph by 1 cm.

For Tables, the title size is 12 and the content size is 10. Number the tables subsequently throughout your article and the title is written above the table (see previous published issues for example).

For Figures, the title size is 12 and the content size (if any) is 10. Number the figures subsequently throughout your article and the title is written below the figure (see previous published issues for example).

References:
The reference list should be arranged alphabetically following the guidelines of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). For example:

1 author (Clarke, 2010)

2 authors (Lightbown & Spada, 1993)

3 authors (Reid et al., 1989)

Short quotations (less than 40 words):
Deterding (1997, p. 54) said that “connected speech represents somewhat more natural data than the rather artificial vowels derived from specially articulated citation speech”.

Long quotations (more than 40 words):
From the acoustic standpoint, even the sounds of words used by a speaker are one of the forms of his or her identity. Accordingly, Jacobi (2009) explained that:

Along with communicating meaning, the acoustic signal is a product of physical properties and changes, as well as of more generally all those factors that form the identity of the speaker, such as social affiliation or family origin. The choice of words but also the way they are realized differs from speaker to speaker, as well as within a speaker. Even more, from an acoustic point of view, each utterance is unique. (Jacobi, 2009, p. 2)

Reference Manager

Before copyediting after article acceptance, the Editors will hyperlink the references with corresponding in-text citations. All references and in-text citations should be in the APA 7th edition and present inside the article’s main body. References that are not cited should be removed.

Template

For consistency and convenience, please use the TEMPLATE we already prepared for Author(s). 

 Article Selection and Publication Process

  • Upon receipt of article submission, the journal's system sends an email of confirmation to the corresponding author. If you fail to receive this confirmation, your submission/email may be missed. The author should pay no submission charge at this stage.
  • Peer review. We use a double-blind system for peer review; both reviewers’ and authors’ identities remain anonymous. The article will be peer-reviewed by two reviewers. The review process may take 2-4 months.
  • Notification of the result of review is by e-mail.
  • The authors revise the paper according to the feedback and suggestions by reviewers. Upon acceptance, Authors are not required to pay article processing and publication charges (APCs) at this time. However, the journal encourages authors to consider sharing data and materials publicly, where possible, to promote transparency and reproducibility in research.
  • After publication, the corresponding author will receive an email of notification on the e-journal in PDF that is available on the journal’s webpage, and free of charge for download.

 AI POLICY

Policy on the Use of Generative AI and AI-assisted Technologies in Publication

Authors are permitted to utilize generative AI to enhance the readability and language quality of their writing. However, it is crucial that:

  • Authors thoroughly review and edit the output generated by AI tools, ensuring the accuracy of their submissions.
  • AI LLM (Large Language Model) should not be acknowledged as an author or co-author in any publication.
  • Authors employing AI in the scientific writing process must disclose the use of AI LLM in the Methods section.
  • Authors must include a statement at the end of their manuscript, preceding the References section, titled “Declaration of Generative AI and AI-assisted Technologies in the Writing Process.” This statement should provide transparency regarding the use of such technologies in the creation of the manuscript.
  • Authors are strictly prohibited from utilizing AI or AI-assisted tools to create or modify images or videos in submitted manuscripts. All visuals included in manuscripts must be created or altered by human authors without the use of artificial intelligence technologies.
  • The use of AI should be below 20%.

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

  1. The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  2. The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RTF, or LaTex document file format.
  3. Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
  4. The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
  5. Important! We require that all co-authors be added to the metadata in the third step of article submission. Otherwise, they will not be included in the article when it is published

 Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright under a Creative Commons Attribution International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) even before the work is officially published, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Ethical Considerations

JELAP adheres to the highest ethical standards in research and publishing. Authors must disclose any conflicts of interest and ensure the ethical treatment of research participants. Submissions involving human subjects must include a statement of ethical approval from a recognized institution or review board.

Common Mistakes to Avoid During Manuscript Preparation

To ensure your manuscript is processed smoothly and avoids unnecessary delays, please avoid the following common mistakes:

  1. Inadequate anonymization: Do not include any identifying information in the main text or headers. Ensure author names, affiliations, and acknowledgments are only in the title page file.
  2. Failure to adhere to word limits: Stay within the prescribed word counts for the type of submission.
  3. Incorrect referencing style: Ensure that all citations and references are formatted in APA (7th edition) style. Double-check that every in-text citation is included in the reference list and vice versa.
  4. Poorly organized manuscript: Use clear headings and subheadings to structure the paper. Ensure a logical flow from the introduction to the conclusion.
  5. Incomplete or unclear tables and figures: Tables and figures should be self-contained, with proper titles and legends. Avoid using abbreviations or symbols without explanation.
  6. Plagiarism: Ensure the work is original and appropriately cites all sources. JELAP uses plagiarism detection software to screen submissions, and plagiarism in any form will result in rejection and potential sanctions.
  7. Missing ethical statements: For empirical research, provide details about ethical approval, participant consent, and compliance with institutional or national research guidelines.