Submissions

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Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • The manuscript is in Microsoft Word format.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
  • FONT: Use italics or bold for emphasis; do NOT underline text, except for URLs.
  • TITLE: Please us sentence case, not uppercase for the article title please.
  • MARGINS are 1" (or 2.5 cm) for top, left, bottom and right. This is incidentally the MS Word default.
  • NB: Provide DOIs of journal articles in the Reference list. Start with https://doi.org ...
  • Provide an ORCiD (strongly recommended).
  • Anonymise the manuscript:
    (a) Redact the author and affiliated institution.
    (b) Remove author details from file properties, see: https://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/jlt/announcement/view/46
  • Upload TWO documents:
    (a) an anonymized manuscript and
    (b) a cover letter with details of authors (incl. biosketches); article title; and contact details of three possible referees. More details in the "Author Guidelines" below.
  • This is just a quick checklist. For more detail, please refer to the Author Guidelines in the section below.

Author Guidelines

To ensure a successful submission, please adhere to the JLT Style Guide for Authors below. Non-compliance can hold up the process: we may ask you to correct and resubmit before we can send the manuscript for review. 

Page fees

R3,000 up to 20 pages (including the cover page and the last page with author's contact details). The cost for subsequent pages will be R300 each.  Once your article has been approved for publication by the editor, you will be invoiced for the above fees. Stellenbosch University authors are exempt of page fees. SAALT members receive a 20% discount on page fees. 

Kindly note that the publication of your article is dependent on full payment beforehand.

Submissions: upload 2 documents please

1. A cover letter which includes

  1. TITLE. Title of the paper.
  2. AUTHOR(S).
    • All contributing authors in the right order. The name of the corresponding author (also responsible for the payment of page fees) must be marked with an asterisk (*).
    • For all authors, please supply the following details:
      • Title  (Mr/Ms Dr Prof.)
      • Mailing address 
      • Email 
      • Institutional affiliation
      • Biosketch of 50-60 words, in narrative form 
      • ORCiD if available (Authors are strongly advised to register for one: https://orcid.org/register.  An ORCiD is your unique academic identifier connecting your names with your work throughout your research career.
  3. REVIEWERS. A proposal with the titles, names, full addresses and email addresses of three scholars who would be able to provide impartial and informed reviews of the quality of the manuscript would be helpful, but is not essential.

2. A copy of the manuscript

  • The paper must contain the title of the paper, an abstract (approx. 200 words), keywords (minimum of 5;  maximum of 10), and then the manuscript must follow. Please do not include references in the abstract. 
  • Ensure a blind review:
    (a) No contributing authors should be indicated on this copy and references to particular institutions should be removed from the paper. For review purposes, refer to University X instead of the name of the institution. 
    (b) Remove personal details in the file properties, here's how:
          File>>Info>>Inspect Document>>Check for issues>>Document and Personal Information>>Remove all. 
  • Submission of a paper is taken to imply that it has not been published elsewhere and that it is not under consideration elsewhere.
  • Submission of a paper also implies that it was language edited.

The review process

A process of double-blind peer review is used. The Editor receives and integrates reviews and communicates with the corresponding author/s.

Word processing

FONT-SIZE: Use ‘Normal’ MS Word format in Times New Roman 12 point font.  Headings, tables and graphics can be designed with a sans-serif font like Arial or Cailibri.

MARGINS: Page layout: 2.5 cm margins (Default Word setting).

HEADINGS: Headings can be numbered up to three levels.  Headings should be in sentence case. 

Examples:

This is sentence case.
THIS IS UPPERCASE.
This is Title Case. 

MAIN TITLE OF THE ARTICLE: The main title of the article is in sentence case. This is in line with the way articles are cited in our reference lists.

REFERENCE LIST: Please make a hanging indent of .5 inches or 1.27 cm (normally the latest MS Word default). The Reference list is not justified for the reason that long URLs are sometimes the cause of uneven word spacing.  The heading for the Reference list is simply 'References' and is not numbered.

Length of manuscripts:  6000 - 8000 words. Contact the editor if you have a strong case to deviate from this. 

Length of abstract: 200 words (approximately).

All manuscripts must have an English abstract. An additional abstract in one other language is optional.

The main points of the citation style chosen for the Journal for Language Teaching are summarised below.

References in the text

WHEN A PAGE IS RELEVANT:  Smith (1997: 14) or Smith (1997: 14-16)

As in the example above, we prefer a space after the colon and before the page numbers.

WHEN A WHOLE WORK IS RELEVANT: Smith (1997) declares that ...

WHEN MORE THAN ONE AUTHOR"S WORK IS RELEVANT:  (Smith 1997: 14; Selepe 2011: 3; Abrams 2013: 4)

TWO AUTHORS:

  1. Grobler and Smits (2021) developed a rating scale for beginner students. 
  2. Rating scales for beginner students have proved that ... (Grobler & Smits 2021). 

THREE OR MORE AUTHORS:

Drennan et al. (2021) has identified language risk for first-year students ...

Note: All authors are listed in the Reference list.

References | Reference list

All works referred to in the text must be listed in the Reference list, and vice versa. The heading for the Reference list is "References" and is not numbered. 

BOOKS

Brown, E.K. (Ed.) 2005. Encyclopedia of language and linguistics (2nd revised edition.). Oxford: Elsevier.  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/referenceworks/978008044854   [Accessed: 27 Match 2016.]

The access date field can be omitted for stable URLs as in the case of DOIs. 

↑ No spaces between initials. Since 2022, we  have dropped "Available:" before an URL.

Doughty, C. & Williams, J.  (Eds.) 1998. Focus on form in the classroom.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

↑ Note: (Eds.) is in brackets, but no brackets enclose the date.

Note on the above
Sentence case is used for the titles of books, articles and papers. 'Sentence case' means that everything, except the first letter of a title,  is in lower case.  Exceptions would be proper nouns which need to be capitalised, as in normal English usage. 

ARTICLES IN JOURNALS

Grobler, C. & Smits, F.H. 2021. The development and refinement of a rating scale for beginner students’ foreign language speaking skills. Journal for Language Teaching 55(2): 117-145. https://doi.org/10.4314/jlt.v55i2.5

No spaces between initials. Volume number is not in italics.

Mbembe, A. 2016. Decolonising of the university: New directions. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 15(1): 29-45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474022215618513

Sebolai, K. & Huff, L. 2015. Academic literacy curriculum renewal at a South African university: A case study. Journal for Language Teaching 49(1): 333-351. https://doi.org/10.4314/jlt.v49i1.13  

↑ DOIs for all journal articles are compulsory. Note the full URL hyperlink with prefix "https://doi.org" ...
Also note: no full stop after a URL or DOI.
An access date is not necessary after a DOI.
Since 2022, the JLT house sytle no longer requires "DOI:" in front of the doi.

In all cases give preference to a DOI above other links, such as ResearchGate links. The DOI is the stable authoratative location. 

Truscott, J. 1996.  The case against grammar correction in L2  language classes.  Language Learning 46: 327-246. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1996.tb01238.x [Journal titles are italicized]

Notes on the above

1. Sentence case is used for a journal article title, whereas Title Case is used for the Journal Title. 

2. Since 2023 the JLT house style requires Subtitles to start in upper case. 
    EXAMPLE: Writing-intensive courses across the law curriculum: Developing law students’ critical thinking and writing skills.

3. Have you noticed? There is no comma after the Journal Title:  Language Learning 46: 327-246.

ARTICLES/CHAPTERS IN BOOKS

Thompson, I.  1995.  Assessment of foreign language comprehension.  In Mendelssohn, D.J. & Rubin, J.  (Eds.) 1995.  A guide for the teaching of L2 listening, pp. 14-31.​ San Diego: Dominic Press.  

UNPUBLISHED THESES, REPORTS, ETC.

Brunfaut, T. 2008. Foreign language reading for academic purposes. Doctoral thesis, University of Antwerp. (Unpublished).
Unpublished titles are not italicized. 

THESES/DISSERTATIONS (ONLINE)

As in the APA-style, we consider a thesis to be published if it is available throught a database or an institutional repository such as KovsieScholar. Please provide a hyperlink if it can be accessed without logging in.  No access date needed. 

Van Dyk, T.J.  2010. Konstitutiewe voorwaardes vir die ontwerp van ’n toets van akademiese geletterdheid. Doctoral thesis, University of the Free State.  http://scholar.ufs.ac.za:8080/xmlui/handle/11660/1918 .

NEWSPAPER ARTICLES

Author (if available). Title of article.  Sunday Express, 2004: 10 April, p. 12.

INTERNET

Author.  Date (when information was published or created or revised).  Title of document/page.  URL  [Accessed: Date].

 If a DOI or a permanent link is recorded, an access date need not be added.

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