The purpose of the A Matter of Practice section of the English Australia Journal is to provide a space for teachers, trainers, managers and university educators to share new ideas, approaches, activities, and tools. It aims to inspire readers to reflect on, or experiment with their current practice.
The A Matter of Practice Editor welcomes submissions of practical, teaching-related articles at any time, and is also happy to discuss any ideas for potential articles. Popular types of articles include:
Activities and lesson ideas: to provide teachers and trainers with an original idea for various types of lessons (General English, Business English, EAP, literacy, professional development, etc.) Should include aim, level, materials, preparation, time, procedure and (possibly) variations.
Tips and techniques: to provide teachers and trainers with 3-5 fresh activities linked to a particular theme (e.g., using e-portfolios, e-learning or technology-enhanced learning, integrating pronunciation in class, motivating learners, etc.) Should include some background or discussion of the theme, although this should not outweigh the practical portion of the article.
Tools for teachers: to introduce teachers and trainers to a new website/tool and describe how it could be used in class.
Action research: to share new findings from an action research project, show wider implications for classroom practice, and suggest ways new directions and/or ways to find out more about this topic.
Please note that submissions can only be considered if they strictly adhere to the guidelines on this page. Although readers/writers may be from Australia or overseas, articles should be appropriate to ELICOS.
Articles should be between 1000 and 1200 words, and may go up to 1500 words with the approval of the A Matter of Practice Editor. They should be written in a semi-formal, easy-to-read style. The general tone expected is similar to that of an in-house professional development session sharing of ideas from one ELT professional to another.
All A Matter of Practice articles should include the following:
Articles should be submitted as Word documents, using single spacing after full stops and Australian spelling. Original worksheets may be included, but note that these may be reformatted for layout reasons, and that they will appear in greyscale (black and white) in the print journal. For this reason, they should not depend on colour differentiation to be understood.
Please ensure that any table, figure, photo, screenshot or illustration is:
NB: Note that any table, figure, photo, screenshot or illustration may be reformatted or placed differently due to layout restrictions.
Contributors must obtain written permission to include any copyright-protected items, such as illustrations, photos, lyrics, or screenshots. Copyright must be acknowledged in the article.
Quotations or paraphrases based on specific parts of a publication must include page references. Any works cited, paraphrased or otherwise mentioned must include page references where required and appear in a reference list at the end. The English Australia Journal uses APA Style (7th edition) for referencing. However, there are some differences in APA for Australian English, and there may also be some areas, such as layout of titles and captions, capitalisation and hyphenation, which follow the specific Style Guide of the English Australia Journal. Please refer to the Style Guide for more information.
Deadlines are negotiable. Articles are subject to a revision process, and if an article cannot be revised in time for a print deadline, it will be carried over to the next issue.
After the first draft has been submitted, the A Matter of Practice Editor is likely to return it with questions and/or suggestions for structure and content. The revised version is then edited, primarily for style and length, and changes are agreed with the reviewer. Please note that there may be further changes at the copyediting and proofreading stages, but these are usually minor.
A Matter of Practice articles are published twice-yearly (April and September) in the A Matter of Practice section of the English Australia Journal. They will also appear on the English Australia website when the issue goes online.
Please note that only a limited number of articles may appear in each issue, so there may be a delay between acceptance and publication. English Australia reserves the right to reject articles or withdraw them from publication. Published articles are the property of the English Australia Journal but may be republished with permission.
Please feel free to contact the A Matter of Practice Editor with any further questions or concerns.
John Smith
