CEFR-Tools:CEFR and LP SIG - - Journal-publication-ethics-mission-statement

CEFR Journal - Research and Practice

ISSN: 2434-849X

Publication Statement - Mission Statement

Publication Statement of the CEFR Journal - Research and Practice

All work published in the CEFR journal is original work, with contributions from the named authors.

The work published in the CEFR journal is open access and licensed under a Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence.

Authors of articles are allowed to retain publishing rights and hold the copyright without restrictions. The CEFR Journal actively checks for plagiarism using Turnitin. The CEFR Journal does not charge article processing charges or submission charges.

Any issues regarding complaints and appeals, conflicts of interest / competing interests; ethical oversight; post-publication discussions and corrections should be directed to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The administration costs of the CEFR Journal are covered by The CEFR & Language Portfolio SIG; the CEFR Journal has no paid advertisements or other revenue sources.

In the event that the CEFR Journal is no longer published, electronic backup and preservation of access to the journal content shall be made available via CLOCKSS.

Please contact the editors and submit to:

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Mission statement

The CEFR Journal is an online, open-access, peer-to-peer journal for practitioners and researchers. Our board of editors comprises stakeholders on a wide range of levels and from around the world. One aim of our journal is to create an open space for exchanging ideas on classroom practice and implementation related to the CEFR and/or other language frameworks, as well as sharing research findings and results on learning, teaching, and assessment-related topics. We are committed to a strong bottom-up approach and the free exchange of ideas. A journal by the people on the ground for the people on the ground with a strong commitment to extensive research and academic rigor. Learning and teaching languages in the 21st century, accommodating the 21st century learner and teacher. All contributions have undergone multiple double-blind peer reviews.

We encourage you to submit your texts and volunteer yourself for reviewing. Thanks a million.

Aims, goals, and purposes

Our aim is to take a fresh look at the CEFR and other language frameworks from both a practitioner’s and a researcher’s perspective. We want the journal to be a platform for all to share best practice examples and ideas, as well as research. It should be globally accessible to the wider interested public, which is why we opted for an open online journal format.

The impact of the CEFR and now the CEFR Companion Volume (CEFR/CV) has been growing to previously wholly unforeseeable levels. Especially in Asia, there are several large-scale cases of adoption and adaptation of the CEFR to the needs and requirements on the ground. Such contexts often focus majorly on English language learning and teaching. However, there are other language frameworks, such as the ACTFL and the Canadian benchmarks, while the Chinese Standard of English (CSE) is also on its way. On the one hand there is a growing need for best practice examples in the form of case studies, and on the other hand practitioners are increasingly wanting to exchange their experiences and know-how. Our goal is to close the gap between research and practice in foreign language education related to the CEFR, CEFR/CV, and other language frameworks. Together, we hope to help address the challenges of 21st century foreign language learning and teaching on a global stage. In Europe, many take the CEFR and its implementation for granted, and not everyone reflects on its potential uses and benefits. Others are asking for case studies showing the effectiveness of the CEFR and the reality of its usage in everyday classroom teaching. In particular, large-scale implementation studies simply do not exist. Even in Europe, there is a center and a periphery of readiness for CEFR implementation. It is difficult to bring together the huge number of ongoing projects from the Council of Europe (CoE), the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML), and the EU aiming to aid the implementation of the CEFR. This results in a perceived absence in the substance of research. Outside Europe, the CEFR has been met with very different reactions and speeds of adaptation and implementation. Over the last few years, especially in Asia, the demand by teachers for reliable (case) studies has been growing.
For more than a decade, the people behind this journal – the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) CEFR & Language Portfolio special interest group (CEFR & LP SIG) – have been working on a number of collaborative research projects, yielding several books and textbooks, as well as numerous newsletters. This is a not-for-profit initiative; there are no institutional ties or restraints in place. The journal aims to cooperate internationally with other individuals and/or peer groups of practitioners/researchers with similar interests. We intend to create an encouraging environment for professional, standard-oriented practice and state-of-the-art foreign language teaching and research, adapted to a variety of contexts.

Editorial Advisory Board

Gregory Birch (Seisen Jogakuin College, Japan)

Jack Bower (Waseda University, Japan)

David Bowskill (Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany)

Jamie Dunlea (British Council, UK) +, Volume 6 is dedicated to him.

Neus Figueras (University of Barcelona, Spain)

Vincent Folny (CIEP, France)

Dafydd Gibbon (Bielefeld University, Germany)

Marita Härmälä (Finnish Education Evaluation Centre, Finland)

Bettina Hermoso-Gomez (University of Leeds, UK)

Antonio Jimenez-Munoz (University of Oviedo, Spain)

Elif Kantarcıoğlu (Bilkent University, Turkey)

Bärbel Kühn (Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany)

Noriko Nagai (Ibaraki University, Japan)

Naoyuki Naganuma (Tokai University, Japan)

Pham Thi Hong Nhung (University of Foreign Languages, Hue University, Vietnam)

Brian North (co-author CEFR and CEFR Companion Volume)

Fergus O'Dwyer (Marino Institute of Education, an Associated College of Trinity College Dublin)

Barry O'Sullivan (British Council, UK)

Cristina Rodríguez (EOI Santiago de Compostela, Spain)

Judith Runnels (University of Bedfordshire, UK)

Nick Saville (Cambridge Assessment English, UK)

Yukio Tono (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan)

Carolyn Westbrook (British Council, UK)

Aaron Woodcock (University of Reading, UK)

Editing and proofreading team

See each volume

Layout

Malcolm Swanson

Please contact the editors and submit to:

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Guidelines

Submission:	Original work
Contributions:	Articles (research), reports (best practice, work in progress, conference presentations), research notes, book reviews, information exchange
Language(s):	English (British, American, international) preferred, but not mandatory. Other languages by request, with an extended abstract in English.
Review type:	Peer review, double blind review

Peer review guidelines:

We ask all peer reviewers to make every reasonable effort to adhere to the following ethical guidelines for the CEFR Journal – Research and Practice submissions that they have agreed to review:

Reviewers must give unbiased consideration to each manuscript submitted for consideration for publication, and should judge each on its merits, without regard to race, religion, nationality, sex, gender, seniority, or institutional affiliation of the author(s).
Reviewers should declare any potential conflict of interest prior to agreeing to review a manuscript, including any relationship with the author that may potentially bias their review.
Reviewers must keep the peer review process confidential; information or correspondence about a manuscript should not be shared with anyone outside the peer review process.
Reviewers should provide a constructive, comprehensive, evidenced, and appropriately substantial peer review report.
Reviewers must avoid making statements in their report that might be construed as impugning a person’s reputation.
Reviewers should make all reasonable efforts to submit their report and recommendation in a timely manner, informing the editor if this is not possible.
Reviewers should call to the journal editor’s attention any significant similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any published paper or submitted manuscript of which they are aware.

Author instructions:

deGruyter Mouton guidelines for Language Learning in Higher Education (CercleS) and style sheet.

(Updated May 5th, 2024 MGS)