Teaching English with Technology, 22(2), 2022, 1-2, https://www.tewtjournal.org 1
FROM THE EDITORS
by Christopher Alexander and Jarosław Krajka
University of Nicosia, Cyprus/ Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Poland
alexander.c @ unic.ac.cy & jarek.krajka @ gmail.com

It is important to state that in a world of constant strife, the Journal of Teaching English with Technology (TEwT), in contradistinction, has always sought to bring global academics together congenially by disseminating, without any bias, forefront studies aimed at helping us to reimagine the way our world-language ‘English’ might be better taught with vanguard technology use in the ESOL context. To achieve this noble goal however, TEwT has constantly been reviewing the effectiveness of its processes and procedures.

For instance, as TEwT aims to improve its initial article screening and overall review times, it is introducing a new two-year agreement which requires reviewers to complete their reviews between 2-4 weeks from the date of the initial review request. Initial screening times are being speeded up too, and these will also be up to 3 weeks in length.

TEwT, in the future, is also planning reviewer general meetings in which current review approaches will be discussed openly and then developed further. One new idea aimed at ensuring the highest possible publication standards is the introduction of a triple blind review stage: only papers that are accepted by both double-blind reviewers are passed on to the tripleblind review stage where a group of experienced reviewers/editors then discuss the papers
suitability for publishing in TEwT.

Another innovation in the review process has been the introduction of various SharePoints, Outlook and other Office 365 services. It is felt that this will lead to more effective communication with authors and more effective management of articles during their review lifecycles. The Editors in Chief would also therefore like to thank Dr Robert Oliwa (Assistant to the Editor) for his indefatigable commitment and outstanding work being done supporting the challenging review process.

All these actions have brought to us the new issue of the Journal, which, as usual, offers a rich mixture of CALL approaches, EFL/ESL viewpoints and countries of origin. Quite expectedly, post-COVID reflections start to appear – hence, Christine Savvidou and Katarzyna Alexander (Cyprus) offer a deep analysis exploring university students’ experiences and perceptions of using breakout rooms, a fundamental features of all online platforms so widely used in the COVID 19 pandemic teaching. As the findings show, students’ personal feelings, attitudes to online learning, sense of connectedness to their peers, expectations of the role and presence of the lecturer and issues relating to the technology, are all considered to be significant factors in their use of breakout rooms.

Tertiary language lecturers’ preferences regarding the access of EFL listening materials by Internet resources are the topic of the contribution by Ferit Kilickaya (Turkey), Joanna Kic-Drgas and Marek Krawiec (Poland). The study demonstrated that the participants used the Internet mainly for preparing extra materials for their learners so that they could also practice listening outside the classroom.

The purpose of the article by Fruzsina Szabó, Kálmán Abari, Dániel Balajthy and Tünde Polony (Hungary) was to examine the effectiveness of a new, tablet-based digital language course programme (HANNA) in teaching English to socially disadvantaged pupils in grades 5-7. The teachers involved in the study reported that the pupils using HANNA became very focused, deeply involved in the application and more co-operative, which could be clearly attributed to the effects of gamification.

Gamified mobile assessment through familiar tools of Kahoot! and Quizziz were the focus of two contributions: Baderaddin Yassin and Mohammed Abdulgalil Abugohar (Saudi Arabia) demonstrated that mobile-assisted formative assessment resulted in a statistically-significant positive influence of using mobile apps on students’ overall language proficiency; while Priyatno Ardi and Elvira Rianita (Indonesia) revealed that the Kahoot! platform enhanced student engagement in EFL grammar learning by enabling learners to set goals, helping them focus more on the tasks, triggering enthusiasm and interest in learning, allowing students to experience playful learning activities, facilitating their collaboration with friends, and fulfilling their need of reward and sense of competition.

Finally, on a completely different note, Augmented Reality (AR) in mobile computer supported collaborative learning has been investigated by Jose Belda Medina (Spain). As the study revealed, teacher candidates lack practical training in AR content creation and implementation from a technological and pedagogical perspective, but their attitudes towards AR integration as transformative technology were very positive, particularly regarding student attention, collaboration and shared enjoyment.

We wish you good reading!