http://dx.doi.org/10.19183/how.23.2.334

Editorial

How to cite this article (APA 6th ed.):
Cárdenas, M. L. (2016). Editorial. HOW, 23(2), 7-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.19183/how.23.2.334.

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. License Deed can be consulted at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Welcome to the second edition of our twenty-third volume. It comes out within the expectations the new indexing policies issued by Publindex-Colciencias have generated. The Colombian research agency that monitors the academic journals published in the country is about to launch the changes in the parameters that will be borne in mind for ranking purposes. They will most likely insist on the visibility of the journals in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), led by Thomson and the Scientific Journal Ranking (SJR), managed by Scopus. Both of them measure the journals’ impact on the citations received in prestigious publications. Whether or not we can fulfil the coming policies, our commitment to maintain HOW open to local and international scholars’ projects remains as the main driving force to publish ASOCOPI’s (Asociación Colombiana de Profesores de Inglés) journal.

As part of HOW’s action plan we worked towards its indexation in SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online), a virtual library for Latin-America, the Caribbean, Spain, and Portugal. This news was announced in the first edition of this volume. Now, we gladly inform our affiliates and readership that we are visible on SciELO’s website. Thus, full texts can be read and downloaded at no cost. Additionally, we have continued submitting our journal to other indexing systems and databases. This way, we wish to enhance our presence in different contexts and countries.

This edition is made up of eight articles received from Colombia, Mexico, and the United States. The contents of three of those articles were presented at the fiftieth annual conference held in October 2015, in which the association celebrated half a century of sustained work in the ELT (English language teaching) area.

In the first section, Research Reports, we have gathered five articles. We begin with two articles related to ASOCOPI. They invite us to trace back the history, expected role, and challenges of our professional association and its academic journal. In the first article, by Edgar Lucero and Zulay Díaz, we can find the results of an on-line cross-sectional questionnaire that sought to depict the characteristics of ASOCOPI’s affiliates, their expectations of being a member, and the contributions that the association has made to their professional development. The analysis carried out by the authors invite us to learn about the impact ASOCOPI has had on its affiliates and, to a certain extent, on the educational communities where they work. No doubt, this study sheds light on the perceptions affiliates have about ASOCOPI and the actions it can possibly implement to broaden its coverage and impact.

In the second article we share a documentary analysis of the evolution of the HOW journal and its challenges in times when academic periodicals are evaluated on the basis of their inclusion in ranking systems. This is based on the examination of the articles published in it and of records of the editorial processes kept over the past ten years. Such analysis leads to a portrayal of authors’ profiles, the identification of their preferred themes and concerns, and the steps the publication has gone through to reach its current state. Additionally, it addresses a series of challenges HOW faces to maintain its periodicity and to respond, as much as possible, to the requirements of today’s ranking policies for academic journals.

The following article deals with collaborative work for language learning. Lorena Caviedes, Angélica Meza, and Ingrid Rodríguez report on a study carried out at a Colombian university with three groups of English as foreign language pre-service teachers who were having or giving tutoring sessions that involved them in working collaboratively in the editing process of some sections of their thesis projects through a corpus interface. An interesting contribution we can find in this project has to do with the identification of the participants’ identities and their insights about their collaborative process when editing academic texts. This, we hope, can provide useful tools for teacher educators interested in supporting novice teacher-researchers along writing processes of academic papers.

Next, we can read a contribution from Mexico. M. Martha Lengeling and Irasema Mora Pablo inform about a project that followed the narrative inquiry principles to explore the reflections of critical incidents of eight beginning English as a foreign language teachers and one of their trainers at a Mexican university. The results let us learn about the relationships that are established between the teacher-educator and the pre-service teachers, their emerging professional identities, and the tutor’s reflection on knowledge transfer.

We close the first section of this edition with Lorena Andrea López Cupita’s article, which contains the results of an action research study aimed at analyzing learners’ perceptions of the strategy Just in Time Teaching in a web 2.0. Among the main contributions of the study, we can point out that the participants, two groups of students at a beginner English level from a Colombian university, acknowledged the contribution of said strategy in engaging them in the learning process and its usefulness in reducing the affective filter.

The second section, Reports on Pedagogical Experiences, includes two works by Colombian teachers. Their themes are based on two different scenarios. First, Álvaro Hernán Quintero Polo reports on a pedagogical intervention that bridged life stories and a narrative perspective to examine nine, out of eighty, pre-service English language teachers’ (re)construction of their true selves while engaged in a three-step introspective practice. The study, conducted within the framework of narrative inquiry, shows that meaningful others and the human dimension contribute to shaping novice teachers’ self in the profession. It also indicates the importance they assign to becoming teachers of English who are transformative, rather than transmissionist.

Subsequently, we have Janeth Juliana Contreras León and Claudia Marcela Chapetón’s article concerning a pedagogical intervention developed with a group of seventh graders during their English as a foreign language class in a public school in Bogotá. This intervention was part of an investigation that sought to foster students’ classroom interaction through the use of cooperative learning principles from a dialogical perspective that focused on social aspects of students’ school lives. The description of the pedagogical process and the samples provided by the authors help us grasp the changes promoted in the classroom practices and in the students’ understanding of group work, among others.

The third section, Reflections and Revision of Themes, contains a literature review. This time, American professor Bryan Meadows examines fifty years (1965-2015) of English language teaching scholarship on the topic of culture teaching. His review is the result of the plenary he offered at our latest conference and he kindly dedicates his article to ASOCOPI’s anniversary. Our readers can find the answers to the two questions that guided the author: How is culture defined? and What does culture teaching look like? The article provides general observations of developments as well as consistencies over the entire literature set. It will surely serve as a cornerstone for those interested in studying cultural issues in ELT.

Once more, the HOW journal and ASOCOPI very much hope you find our publication interesting and useful. We are aware of the demands and challenges authors face to get their manuscripts published. Nevertheless, we remind you that we are a publication by and for teachers of English who wish to share outcomes of educational and research experiences intended to add understanding to English language teaching practices. Your contributions are welcome throughout the year!

Melba Libia Cárdenas
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Sede Bogotá
Guest Editor