In this post, I’d like to write a few words about Children’s Literature in English Language Education Journal (CLELEjournal), a journal on 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 it 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 the 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 interest in reading among adolescents, “when puberty stirs them 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 dramatisation of the story with generative 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 conflict (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.
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About me
Achilleas Kostoulas is an applied linguist and language teacher educator at the Department of Primary Education, University of Thessaly, Greece. He holds a PhD and an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from the University of Manchester, UK and a BA in English Studies from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.
His research explores a wide range of issues connected with language (teacher) education, including language contact and plurilingualism, linguistic identities and ideologies, language policy and didactics, often using a Complex Dynamic Systems Theory perspective to tease out connections between them. Some of his work includes the research monograph The Intentional Dynamics of TESOL (2021, De Gruyter; with Juup Stelma) and the edited volume Doctoral Study and Getting Published (2025, Emerald; with Richard Fay), as well as numerous other publications.
Achilleas currently contributes to several projects that bring together his long-standing interests in language education, teacher development, and the social dimensions of language learning. As the coordinator of the AI Lang (Artificial Intelligence in Language Education) expert team at the European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe, he is active in developing principles and resources to help educators make informed, pedagogically grounded use of AI in their teaching. He also leads the University of Thessaly team of ReaLiTea (Research Literacy of Teachers), a project that supports language teachers to engage with, and contribute to, educational research. Alongside these, he contributes to LocalLing (Revitalisation of Linguistic Diversity and Cultural Heritage), a Horizon-funded initiative for the preservation of heritage and minority languages globally.
In addition to the above, Achilleas is the (co)editor-in-chief of the European Journal of Education and Language Review, and welcomes contributions that explore the dynamic intersections between language, education, and society.
About this post
This blog is a space for slow, reflective thinking about applied linguistics, language education, professional development, and the role of technology in language teaching and learning. Transparency about process, tools, and authorship is part of that commitment.
- I wrote this post on 5 June 2024. A revision on 26 July 2026 involved limited proofreading changes, adding the ‘related posts’ section, and revising the ‘about’ section for consistency with the rest of the blog.
- The views expressed here are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the CLELEJournal editorial team, the University of Thessaly, or any other entity with which I am affiliated.
- The featured image is licensed from Adobe Stock.
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