In this post, I’d like to write a few words about Children’s Literature in English Language Education Journal (CLELEjournal), a journal at the review board of which I am proud to serve. Like many academics, I review for multiple journals, but one thing that makes CLELEjournal stand out is that provides a true shared space for university-based researchers and teachers to exchange ideas. Such spaces are not very common, even in practice-oriented fields such as TESOL, and that is why I feel it is important that we give them as much visibility as possible.
The Journal
The CLELEjournal focuses on the use of children’s literature in ELT classes, as a means for fostering second language acquisition, intercultural learning and awareness of global issues. This includes the use of fiction and non-fiction, including oral storytelling, fairytales, picture books, comics and graphic novels, and poetry. It also encompasses educational drama, films and language learner literature.
The journal publishes two issues a year, in May and November, and each issue contains three to five thoroughly peer-reviewed articles, as well as book reviews and notes on recommended reads. These range from 3,000 to 7,000 words and are often articles with a practical orientation or articles that report directly on practice-based research. At an age when the research–practice gap in education seems to be widening, this is a valuable niche where experiences from the classroom are given voice and research with very visible practical implications is showcased.
All articles are published as diamond open access. This means that they are freely available to read and there are no Article Processing Charges for authors. This, too, is something that makes the journal stand out, at an age when scholarship is increasingly commodified.
The Latest Issue
The latest issue (Vol. 12, Issue 1), which was what prompted this short post, begins with an editorial by Janice Bland, the Editor-in-Chief. Bland reminds us that, while English is often perceived as the dominant, or indeed only option for international communication, this is not the best or indeed only perspective to take.
The CLELEjournal understands English as a lingua franca to be multicultural rather than culture-free – but eschewing the idea of ‘target cultures’, which often merely leads to the reproduction of dominant viewpoints.
Following the editorial readers will find five articles that showcase scholarship from diverse geographical contexts (Sweden, China, Switzerland and Norway) and settings (teacher education, primary and secondary schools).
Developing student teachers’ sustainability competence through picturebooks
The first article, by Malin Brock, presents a teacher preparation module at a Swedish university. In this module, pre-service teachers developed the ability to select and effectively picturebooks in the context of Education for Sustainable Development. The article includes a very useful list of criteria that language teachers might want to use or adapt for selecting picture books for their own classes.
Recommended citation
Brock, M. L. (2024). Developing student teachers’ sustainability competence through picturebooks. Children’s Literature in English Language Education, 12(1), 1.
Peritextual elements in Chinese nonfiction picturebooks
Next, the article by Sunah Chung, Jongsun Wee and Sohyun Meacham discusses the information that supplements the substantive content of a picture book. Such peritextual elements include introductory remarks, glossaries, endnotes, additional reading lists and bibliographies, and other similar content. Examining this content critically is important because it could provide clues about the motivations of authors to produce the picture book. It also helps readers understand whether the book (e.g., a picture book about Imperial China) is informed by an ‘insider’ or an ‘outsider’ perspective.
Recommended citation
Chung, S., Wee, J., & Meacham, S. (2024). Peritextual elements in Chinese nonfiction picturebooks. Children’s Literature in English Language Education, 12(1), 2.
A multiliteracies approach to the graphic novel adaptation of Stormbreaker: Facilitating authentic reading in a Swiss lower secondary ELT classroom
The third contribution, by Diego Sigrist and Michael Prusse, aims to address the ‘reading blip’, i.e., the drop-off of interests in reading among adolescents, “when puberty stirs them to initially to search for and later to assert their own identity’. The article discusses a creative classroom-based project in a rural school in Switzerland that used the graphic novel adaptation of the spy book ‘Stormbreaker’ to foster reading strategies and multimodal meaning-making. This inspiring article shows the potential of using literature effectively even with learners who might be described as underachieving.
Recommended citation
Sigrist, D. & Prusse, M. (2024). A multiliteracies approach to the graphic novel adaptation of Stormbreaker: Facilitating authentic reading in a Swiss lower secondary ELT classroom. Children’s Literature in English Language Education, 12(1), 3.
Life skills and literary texts about the First World War
Article 4, by Torunn Skjærstad, presents another classroom-based project, in which learners in a secondary school in Norway engaged with prose and poetry about the First World War. The encounter with these literary texts fostered critical thinking and empathy, and also helped to broaden the learners’ understandings of what history is.
Recommended citation
Skjærstad, T. (2024). Life skills and literary texts about the First World War. Children’s Literature in English Language Education, 12(1), 4.
Drama and AI for teaching picturebooks in ELT
The last article in the issue, by Li Ding, discusses how generative AI tools and drama techniques can help learners develop critical AI literacy. Using the picture book The Big Ugly Monster and the Little Stone Rabbit by Chris Wormell, as an example, Li Ding describes how teachers can use AI tools in class and how such images can serve as discussion prompts. The author also describes how teachers can enhance the dramatization of the story with generatuve AI (e.g. to generate a soundtrack from textual prompts).
Recommended citation
Ding, L. (2024). Drama and AI for teaching picturebooks in ELT. Children’s Literature in English Language Education, 12(1), 5.
Reviews and reading recommendations
The issue also includes a thoughtful review of Rehumanizing the Language Curriculum (Echevarría, 2023) by Jocelyn Wright, and a selection of four books, focusing on how children experience conlict (curated by Alyssa Lowery) that may be of interest to the readers of the journal.
How to submit your work to CLELEjournal
As I mentioned earlier in this post, CLELEjournal is a publication venue that would be very suitable for teachers doing practice-based research as well as scholars whose work has a direct interface with teaching practice.
If you are considering publishing your work there, you may want to take a look at the author instructions. The button below will open a new window directly to the submission form.
About me
Achilleas Kostoulas teaches applied linguistics and language teacher education courses at the University of Thessaly in Greece. He holds a PhD and an MA in TESOL from the University of Manchester and a BA in English Studies from the University of Athens. A salient aspect of his work involves linking the perceived gap betwen research and teaching practice.
About this post
This post was originally written in June 2024. The cover photo, by Adobe Stock, is used with licence. The content of this blog does not represent the views of my employers or CLELEjournal.
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