Info for Authors

1. We encourage a style characterized by clarity and consideration for the reader. Our readers are likely to be familiar with either English language teaching scholarship or children’s literature scholarship. In order to maximize accessibility, concepts and terminology well known in only one of these fields must always be briefly explained.

2. It is important to always clearly identify the context. Where possible, the journal favours the use of the neutral acronym ELT when referring to language education, and finds the construct ‘English as a foreign language’ (EFL) problematic. For more information please see the editorial ‘ELT as a Pluricultural Space’ (Children’s Literature in English Language Education, 2018, 6(2), p. ii).

3. Terminology referring to children’s literature must be consistent. Apart from multimodal texts such as picturebooks and graphic novels, we solicit papers on chapter books, young adult novels, crossover fiction, verse novels, play scripts for children and oral storytelling. Poetry papers may refer to children’s poems and children’s oral literature such as nursery rhymes and playground rhymes. Fairy tales exist in many versions, including picturebook versions, film and literary fairy tales. Please define any new or differing terminology you may wish to use very precisely.

4. We would like to have a combination of brief but pithy articles and longer research papers and practitioner reports, hence the word count range from 3000 to 7000. The first may spawn debate and even initiate lively controversy, while the second will be particularly useful in developing this new interdisciplinary field. Articles longer than 7000 words (not including references and appendix) cannot be considered. The editors recommend submitting articles below the maximum word count to allow for requests for additional context or additional theoretical underpinning by peer reviewers. Otherwise, you could have to delete passages from your paper following peer review to accommodate any requested additions.

5. The first page of your paper should contain the title, author’s name, email address and institutional affiliation. The title should be no more than 15 words in length and contain no abbreviations. Please include biodata on the first page (maximum 50 words). This will not be forwarded to the peer reviewers, but will be published with your article should it be accepted for Children’s Literature in English Language Education..

6. Please use single quotation marks very sparingly to alert readers that a term is used in an ironic or special sense. However, please avoid too many of these – known as scare quotes – as they can irritate the reader. 

7. A page header should appear on every page with the title of the paper, but without the name of the author. Please place an abstract of 150 to 250 words on the second page, followed by a list of four to seven keywords. These should be precise, in order to help scholars carrying out web searches find your article.

8. Whereas your list of scholarly works under the heading References must follow APA7, any literary texts referred to (including movies) are listed separately under the heading Bibliography. Our house style for literary texts does not follow APA7, but requires full first names and surnames, and capital letters in the titles of picturebooks, plays, graphic novels, movies etc. Here are some examples:

Daywalt, Drew, illus. Oliver Jeffers (2013). The Day the Crayons Quit. HarperCollins.

Gaiman, Neil, illus. Chris Riddell (2014). The Sleeper and the Spindle. Bloomsbury.

The Hunger Games (2012). [Film] Dir. Gary Ross. Lionsgate.

The Social Dilemma (2020). [Documentary] Dir. Jeff Orlowski. Netflix.

9. When multimodal texts are created by an author/illustrator team, please remember to cite authors and illustrators within the text and in the bibliography. Any image and/or Figure you wish to include should be both integrated in the text when first submitting your paper and submitted separately as a high-quality jpeg. Feel free to send to the journal email address clelejournal@nord.no if the attachments cannot easily be submitted via the Submit Paper form.

10. You must secure permission for any inside illustration as soon as your paper has been accepted. Please remember to write to the original publisher for permission, not the publisher of later editions. The publisher will need to know that Children’s Literature in English Language Education is non-profit, academic and open access.

11. Including the cover of a book in your article should fall under fair dealing, as the journal represents non-commercial research. As long as you refer to the book in your text, you do not need to seek permission for the use of a cover. We will also use the cover of a particular book your paper focuses on as a window to your article (see current issue). Therefore, you will need to submit a good quality scan of the cover of the book at the revision stage.

12. Papers may be submitted at any time. The November issue deadline is 1st July each year. The May issue deadline is 1st January each year.

The editors will acknowledge your paper within a few days of submission. A lengthy process of internal review and blind peer review by two to three reviewers follows submission. If the editors decide to send your paper to peer review, you can expect to wait circa three months until you receive the reviewers’ comments. In almost every case some revisions will be required before your paper can be published in the CLELEjournal. We hope the wait will be worth it. This is an exciting project in an important, emerging field.

The CLELEjournal Recommended Reads section is organised thematically and aims to reflect the latest global ELT trends and interest areas. These encompass interdisciplinary and citizenship education themes which are increasingly embedded in ELT curricula such as intercultural learning, sustainability, lifeskills, inclusion and belonging. We also strive to showcase a rich variety of recently published literary formats in each issue, thereby appealing to children and teenagers learning English in different school grades and ages.