elt research proposal writing guidelines

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ELT Research Proposal Writing Guidelines

Pardede, Parlindungan (2019) ELT Research Proposal Writing Guidelines. In: PROCEEDING English Education Department Collegiate Forum (EED CF) 2015-2018. UKI Press, Indonesia, Jakarta, pp. 1-13. ISBN 978 623 7256 25 0

For undergraduate or post-graduate students, writing a research proposal is compulsory because it is the main academic document used to justify their ability to present a case converted into an idea and the plan proposed to resolve it. The quality of a research proposal will determine whether or not the students will gain approval to conduct the research required to complete their study. This article aimed to discuss a research proposal components and provide some tips for writing a sound proposal. Although all research proposals basically have a generic nature, different disciplines, advisors, and committees can expect to vary. Thus, the research proposals are various from one discipline to another and from one committee to another. This article focuses on the undergraduate research proposal for ELT. The style and examples used in the discussion are typical of ELT field.

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• ELT Research Awards

ELTRA guidelines

English language teaching research awards (eltras) 2023–24, call for proposals now open.

Through this successful and popular scheme, we aim to facilitate the production of original research to contribute to the body of knowledge related to English language teaching and learning by co-funding a number of partnership awards.

Resulting papers will be published as part of the British Council ELTRA series.

Please read the ELTRA Call for proposals carefully as some details of the ELTRA scheme have changed since the last call.

What is the purpose of the ELTRA scheme?

• To facilitate the production of high-quality research relevant to ELT practitioners.
• To improve access of ELT policy makers and professionals worldwide to high-quality and relevant research.
• To facilitate and encourage the establishment and maintenance of active research links between ELT professionals, researchers and policy makers in the UK and internationally.

Who may apply?

Any person with a formal affiliation to a UK higher educational institution may submit a proposal. The award agreement will be with the institution and not with the individual. Applications must include a letter from the institution confirming they are prepared to accept and manage the award.

The scheme aims to encourage effective research partnerships between academics and institutions in the UK and those in ODA-eligible countries (see https://www.oecd.org/dac/financing-sustainable-development/development-finance-standards/DAC-List-of-ODA-Recipients-for-reporting-2022-23-flows.pdf for the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) list of ODA-eligible countries).

The person submitting the application (the co-Principal Investigator) must be formally attached to a UK university. However, applications will only be considered if they include an additional co-Principal Investigator who is a national of and is based in a recognised institution in an ODA-eligible country which is included as a research location in the proposed study. The research should, in whole or in part, take place outside the UK, with additional co-researchers and research participants based predominantly in ODA-eligible countries. Priority will be given to proposals that also include an early-career researcher.  

What type of activity can be considered?

For this year’s awards, the British Council wishes to fund research focussing on teacher development within the following four areas:

English language teaching in education 

Focuses on the teaching and learning of English in formal education systems where the home language is the language of teaching and learning and English is taught as a mandatory or elective subject.

English in a multilingual world  

Focuses on bilingual or multilingual formal education systems where English is the language of teaching and learning for all or part of the education system.

English for girls’ education 

Focuses on girls who are out of school and/or living in socio-economically disadvantaged or isolated communities, where language is often a barrier to girls’ education. Projects in this area are designed to empower girls, provide agency and voice, and enable them to make more informed life choices in the future. This is done through the provision of English and other core skills such as digital literacy, and providing opportunities to discuss social issues that affect their lives.

Language for resilience 

Focuses on the role of English and other languages in building resilience, usually outside of the formal education system. This can be in the form of giving a voice to young people and adults affected by conflict or distrust, building social cohesion in communities or providing individuals with the skills they need to access education, career opportunities, services and information.

What type of activity is outside the scheme?

• We define research as original investigation undertaken in order to gain knowledge and understanding.
• The research must not have already taken place or be underway.
• The research outputs, including the final paper, must be in English (though there may also be a version of all or part of the output(s) in another language or languages).
• Funding will usually only be agreed for a period of one year. If your project will require more than one year, you will need to give a clear justification for this on the application form.
• This scheme is not intended to fund the field work of Ph.D. candidates or similar.
• Researchers/institutions who have yet to complete an existing ELTRA-funded project are not eligible to apply for another ELTRA. Recipients of awards will become eligible to submit research proposals when the research paper from a previous ELTRA award has been accepted for publication by the British Council.

How can I apply?

Please read the ELTRA Call for proposals below carefully as some details of the scheme have changed since the last awards were granted.

Please submit any clarification questions to [email protected] by 30 October 2023. We will reply to individual questions by email.

Webinar recording and Q&As

Watch the recording of the webinar for potential applicants where we discuss the details of the scheme.

Download the complete list of ELTRA Q&As received.

Please submit to [email protected] :

• A completed application form (Annex 1)
• A completed budget form (Annex 2)
• CVs of all project researchers
• Signed letters of support from both co-PIs’ universities

by 23.59 (UK time) on Friday 12 January 2024.

Documents to download

• ELTRA 2023 Call for proposals.pdf
• ELTRA 2023 Annex 1 application form.docx
• ELTRA 2023 Annex 2 Budget form.xls
• ELTRA 2023 Annex 3a Schedule 3 up to £20k.pdf
• ELTRA 2023 Annex 3b Schedule 3 over £20k.pdf
• List of ELTRA Q&As

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Research Proposal: Investigating the Effectiveness of Pronunciation Instruction for Intelligibility

Related Papers

Rizky Akbar

IJISET - International Journal of Innovative Science, Engineering & Technology, Vol. 7 Issue 9, September 2020 ISSN (Online) 2348 – 7968 | Impact Factor (2020) – 6.72 www.ijiset.com

Niruba Jayasundara

The aim of this study was to investigate the difficulties encountered by the Higher National Diploma English students of Advanced Technological Institute, Trincomalee in using stress and intonation and to identity the errors in speaking and loud reading. The use of stress and intonation is very important in oral communication. Encountering difficulties in the use of stress and intonation has been a problem for Higher National Diploma students. As a result, this study was carried out. In this study, 25 Higher National Diploma students from the first-year and second-year of Advanced Technological Institute were randomly selected as the sample for investigation. This study was descriptive research and quantitative method was used to collect data. The research instruments used in this study were oral pronunciation test and audiotape recording. The oral pronunciation test was used to collect the data regarding the difficulties the students encounter in using stress and intonation. It consisted of 5 sets of words and 10 sentences with regard to stress and intonation, and audiotape recording was used to record the performance of the students. Later, their pronunciation errors were noted. According to the finding and results of the oral pronunciation test, 62% of the participants encountered difficulties in using word stress whereas 64% of the participants encountered difficulties in using sentence stress. Further, 68% of the participants encountered difficulties in using intonation. These difficulties and problems causes due to adult age, insufficient phonetic knowledge and lack of pronunciation practice. This problem can be overcome and the ability in using stress and intonation can be improved in their speaking and loud reading when pronunciation is introduced as separate component like grammar, writing etc in school English as a Second Language curriculum. Through implementing it at schools, natural pronunciation can be given before adulthood.

Costas Gabrielatos

Assessing the Importance of Stress and Intonation as Supra-segmental Features of Speech and Sound-attributes to the process of comprehension

Ahmed ALDUAIS

Julia Urbina

International Journal of English Language Education

Mohammad wakil Hassani

Ilha do Desterro: A Journal of English Language, Literatures in English and Cultural Studies

Pedro Luis Luchini

Annual review of applied linguistics

Jaquayla Jenkins

For several decades of the 20th century, the main interest of pronunciation teaching research was in applying contrastive analysis techniques to the sound segments of the L1 and L2 to identify differences between them and so, it was assumed, to highlight areas where L1 transfer ...

Sinem Sonsaat

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Information for Authors

ELT Journal is truly international, with subscribers in almost every country in the world. Readers of ELT Journal teach EFL, ESL, EAP, and ESP in a range of local contexts and conditions. They work in primary and secondary schools, in colleges and universities, in the state and private sectors. Some are teacher trainers and others are teachers in training. Many hold posts of responsibility and manage ELT programmes and projects.

General information concerning submissions

We have now set up a web-based online submission system for articles, features and reviews. We can now only accept contributions through this system. Full details of how to make online submissions can be found on the  Manuscript Submission webpage. Authors are requested not to make multiple submissions of the same article to different journals at the same time. We hope that you will have written a submission especially for the specific readership of ELT Journal , so please do not send it to other journals until you have heard back from us. Articles must not contain libellous or defamatory material. Please do not send more than one submission at a time. ELT Journal will only publish one article per author in each volume of the printed journal. All submissions are blind reviewed by two experts, one internal and one external. The first is a member of the Editorial Advisory Panel; the second a practitioner or academic in the wider community. In order to maintain anonymity during the peer review process, please avoid stating your name when making a reference to your own work, either in the text or References, and use ‘Author’ instead. Before you consider submitting your article to ELT Journal , please familiarize yourself with the Journal and the type of article we publish. If you do not have access to recent copies, you may view a sample issue on our website .

ELT Journal invites submissions in a number of categories:

Articles We welcome articles that draw on experience with new methods, techniques, materials, syllabuses, means of assessment, approaches to teacher training, and other areas of professional interest.

Articles focusing on aspects of the English language (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, discourse features, etc.) are also welcome, so long as they do not require specialist knowledge of linguistics, and so long as they are not purely descriptive or analytical. Readers are interested in the practical applications of language description or analysis.

We are interested in receiving articles that describe carefully planned and executed experiments, provided that the experiment is designed to throw light on a topic which is itself of interest to our readers.

We are also glad to receive articles which deal with the issues implicit in English language teaching in context, e.g. the effects of educational policy, aspects of management, the planning and development of projects, review and evaluation procedures, cultural aspects of ELT, and so on.

Contributors are asked to take into account the following important factors when writing their articles:

• Articles should be of interest and relevance to the readers of ELT Journal .
• They should be clearly and coherently written so that the contents are internally consistent and accessible to the readership.
• ELT Journal is not a journal of primary research. There should be a balance between theory and practice in all submissions. Descriptions of practice should be related to underlying theoretical principles; theoretical concepts should be clarified by reference to their practical applications.
• Articles that deal with a particular teaching or learning context should have clear implications for people working in a wide variety of different situations.
• Articles must demonstrate an awareness of other and recent work carried out in the area on which they report.
• The presentation and discussion of data must not pre-suppose more than a basic knowledge of statistics or of specialized terminology.
• Care must be taken not to over-reference articles by supplying lists of sources which contain more than the key references. Articles should contain no more than 15 references. Of these, no more than two should relate to the author’s own work.

Reviews Unsolicited reviews cannot be accepted for publication. If you are interested in writing a review for ELT Journal , please contact the Reviews Editor at the address given in the Journal or on our website. The website address is given at the end of this guide.

Key concepts in ELT Key Concepts’ is a feature of the Journal that provides clear and concise accounts of important concepts in the field of ELT. It aims to assist readers in developing an appreciation of central ideas in ELT from a perspective informed by current debate. Unsolicited key concept articles cannot be accepted for publication. The website address is given at the end of this guide.

The View from Here The View from Here reports on specific topics of interest or issues being dealt with in diverse ELT contexts across the globe. The focus should be on a topic or issue that is of relevance for your local setting that you feel passionate about. The main idea is to report on local issues from your perspective but also consider what lessons or ideas can be drawn for readers in other settings across the globe. It should be locally situated writing with a global message.

Contributions to The View from Here should be approximately 1,500 words in length with a maximum of 5 references. There is no rigid fixed structure to follow but you should try to cover the following content:

• Outline issue/topic
• Describe your local setting
• Present your personal experience and perspective
• Reflect on the wider implications of your experience for others in diverse contexts

If you are interested in contributing to The View from Here, please contact Sarah Mercer ( [email protected] ) for further information.

Comment This is a feature in which individuals are invited to express their personal, and sometimes controversial, views on professional issues. These views are not necessarily those of the Editor, the Editorial Panel, or the Publisher. The maximum length of contributions is 1,000 words.

Readers respond This is a forum for readers to contribute their own reactions, perspectives, or experiences in relation to a specific article published in a recent issue. Submissions, which must be a maximum of 1,250 words, will be considered by the Editorial Panel before being accepted for publication.

Correspondence We welcome letters from readers in response to published articles, features, and reviews. Letters must be a maximum of 500 words and may be edited for length or content.

Preparing an article

In preparing your article, please pay close attention to the following:

Authors Because of space and layout constraints, we cannot list more than two authors for an article on the contents page. However, all authors will be listed on the first page of the article. In the case of multiple authorship, names will appear in the order in which contributors give them, even if that order is not alphabetical. For purposes of online tagging, please ensure author names are supplied with the first name first, followed by the surname or family name. Please also provide the country along with your affiliation/address.

Length Articles of around 3,500 words in length are preferred. It is not possible for us to accept articles over 4,000 words long. Please give a word count at the end of your article. Word counts should include tables and appendices, but may exclude the abstract and the list of references.

Style Please try to make your article as easy to read as possible. Use short headings and subheadings to make the structure of your article clear. If appropriate, illustrate your article with examples, diagrams, tables, etc. If you introduce a term which you think may not be familiar to some readers, give a short definition in a note at the end of the article. The use of 'he' and 'his', 'she' and 'her' is acceptable only when a definite person is being referred to. Please use ‘he or she’, ‘his or hers’; ‘they’ or ‘them’; or plural nouns, e.g. ‘students’, ‘teachers’, etc.

Spelling Please use standard British English spelling of words such as ‘centre’ or ‘colour’. Where British English has alternative spellings of words such as ‘recognize’/‘recognise’, please use the ‘z’ form, e.g. ‘summarize’. But note that in British English ‘analyse’ is spelt with ‘s’. Please use ‘for example’ in the text and ‘e.g.’ in lists of tables/figures. There should be no comma after ‘e.g.’ or ‘i.e.’. Please use: cooperative, email (no hyphen); internet (capital letter not necessary, but please be consistent); online (no hyphen); per cent (two words – only use % in tables/figures); sociocultural (no hyphen); website (no hyphen); learnt (not learned); focus, focuses, etc. (one ‘s’); none the less (three words); on to (two words).

Numbers One to ten (in words), 11, 12, and so on in figures, unless these appear at the beginning of a sentence or when both a small and large number appear in the same sentence, e.g. … ‘5 classes of 28 …’. When using thousands, please use a comma separator, e.g. 2,500. Fractions should be written in words and hyphenated. Percentages in the text are normally given as whole numbers, e.g. 27 per cent, but can be given with decimal points in tables/figures where necessary.

Lists First level lists should be numbered first, with lower-level lists being alphabetized. Numbered and alphabetized lists should have no full points or brackets around the initial number / letter, e.g. 1 The house they lived in was green. a It used to be blue before it was green. b It used to be red before it was blue. 2 The building they worked in was blue. Alphabetized lists: a The house they lived in was green. b The building they worked in was blue. Bulletted lists should have no punctuation at the end except for the final point:

• houses were green
• buildings were blue
• garages were red.

Commonly used abbreviations The following do not need to be spelt out in either the abstract or text: EAP, EFL, ESP, ELT, ESOL, TESOL, NS (native speaker), NNS (non-native speaker), IATEFL, L1, L2, IT, CELTA Countries and organizations: United States of America (USA, or US for descriptive purposes); United Kingdom (UK). (No full points.)

Foreign characters These appear most commonly in names, and should be marked up for the typesetters. Foreign language words should appear in italics without single quote marks, e.g. ‘… the word platano means ‘banana’ in English’.

Title and abstract Please give your article a brief, clear, and informative title. Titles should preferably be no more than 50 characters long, with an absolute maximum of 70, including spaces. Begin your article with an abstract of no more than 150 words summarizing your main points. Please do not make reference to other publications in the abstract; any abbreviations defined in the abstract (other than those listed above) should be spelt out again on first mention in the text.

Format See the separate file ELTJ template for guidance on formatting your article with the correct layout. It is not necessary to format first submissions.

Headings and subheadings Headings and subheadings should be on a separate line, ranged left. Underline main headings, but do not underline subheadings. Do not use a numbering or lettering system for headings. Do not try to format your submission in the style of a published article.

Page numbers Please make sure that pages are numbered.

References in the text If you wish to make references in the text to other publications please do so clearly and in the following way: author’s surname, date, and page number in parentheses, e.g. (Kramsch 1993: 35). If the reference is to a general argument or topic covered by the author, you may omit the page number. However, a quotation or a specific point made by an author must be supported by a page number reference. If you refer to the same publication twice (or more) in quick succession, please use the following form on the second or subsequent occasion, e.g. (Kramsch ibid.: 156). If you refer to the same publication more than once, but not on the same page, then please use the following form on the second or subsequent occasion, e.g. (Kramsch op.cit.). Please remember not to over-reference your article either in relation to specific points you make in the text (maximum of two references to support any specific point), or overall (maximum of 15 references overall). In your article, please make sure you refer to no more than two of your own previous publications.

As previously stated, in order to maintain anonymity during the peer review process, please avoid stating your name when making a reference to your own work, either in the text or References, and use ‘Author’ instead. If a publication has two or more authors/editors, please list all names in the References and in the first instance in the text (then use et al. thereafter); if referring to two or more publications, please list these chronologically rather than alphabetically, e.g (Waters 1998; Seedhouse 2004).

List of references Please give full bibliographical details of references and list them in alphabetical order of author, following the style of the examples given below. Page numbers for journal articles should be truncated where possible (e.g. ELT Journal 63/1: 25–9; ELT Journal 60/3: 213–21). However, no page ranges are required for books.

British Council. 2006. Future Perfect-English Language Policy for Global Transition Conference Report . Available to download as a pdf.  (accessed 18 December 2007). [Note that for internet/web references, a full web address is required together with a date accessed.]

Donato, R. and F. Brooks. 1994.'Looking across collaborative tasks: capturing L2 discourse development’. Paper presented at AAAL Conference, Baltimore, Maryland.

Johnson, K. 2008. An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching (Second edition). Harlow: Pearson Longman.

Littlejohn, A. 1992. 'Why are ELT materials the way they are?'. Unpublished PhD thesis, Lancaster University, UK.

Nunan, D. 1990. 'Action research in the language classroom' in J.C. Richards and D. Nunan (eds.).

Pennington, M.C. 1990 'A professional development focus for the language teaching practicum' in J. C. Richards and D. Nunan (eds.). [Note this format when your list of references contains two or more mentions of an edited collection.]

Richards, J. C. and D. Nunan (eds.). 1990. Second Language Teacher Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Swales, J. 1989. 'Service English programme design and opportunity cost' in R.K. Johnson (ed.). The Second Language Curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Note this format when your list of references contains only one mention of an edited collection.]

Wenden, A. 1986a. 'Helping language learners think about learning'. ELT Journal 40/1: 3-12.

Wenden, A. 1986b. 'What do second language learners know about their language learning?' Applied Linguistics 7/2: 186-201.

Footnotes Short notes can appear in the text within brackets; longer ones should be collected together at the end of the article. There will be no footnotes on individual pages. Please number your notes consecutively, giving clear superscript numbers in the appropriate places. You should not include more footnotes than are absolutely necessary.

Acknowledgements Please do not include acknowledgements to colleagues or students who may have helped you during the writing of the article. It is often difficult to find space to credit all those who might be credited and we have therefore decided to leave it to authors to express their thanks personally.

Illustrations If your article is to contain essential illustrations (including diagrams, tables, charts, etc.), please supply them in electronic form in a separate file from the main document, labelled Figure 1, Figure 2, etc. References to illustrations should be clearly indicated in parentheses in the text, e.g. (Insert Figure 1 here). 

Reusing copyrighted material

As an author, you must obtain permission for any material used within your manuscript for which you are not the rightsholder, including quotations, tables, figures, or images. In seeking permissions for published materials, first contact the publisher rather than the author. For unpublished materials, start by contacting the creator. Copies of each grant of permission should be provided to the editorial office of the Journal. The permissions agreement must include the following:

• nonexclusive rights to reproduce the material in your paper in  ELT Journal
• rights for use in print and electronic format at a minimum, and preferably for use in any form or medium
• lifetime rights to use the material
• worldwide English-language rights

Our publisher, Oxford University Press, provides detailed  Copyright and Permissions Guidelines , and a summary of the fundamental information . Do be sure to find the original rights holder for each image, particularly by avoiding Google Images, Wikimedia Commons, etc, and also blogs in many cases (unless there is a credit line pointing to the rights holder).

Biographical note It is not necessary to include biographical details with a first submission.

Data collection materials ELTJ encourages authors to consider uploading their data collection materials to the IRIS database which is an online repository for data collection materials used for second language research. This includes data elicitation instruments such as interview and observation schedules, language tests, pictures, questionnaires, software scripts, url links, word lists, teaching intervention activities, amongst many other types of materials used to elicit data. Please see the IRIS webpage  for more information and to upload. Any questions may be addressed to [email protected] .

Availability of Data and Materials

Where ethically feasible, ELTJ strongly encourages authors to make all data and software code on which the conclusions of the paper rely available to readers. We suggest that data be presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files, or deposited in a public repository whenever possible. For information on general repositories for all data types, and a list of recommended repositories by subject area, please see  Choosing where to archive your data .

Data Citation

ELTJ supports the Force 11 Data Citation Principles and requires that all publicly available datasets be fully referenced in the reference list with an accession number or unique identifier such as a digital object identifier (DOI). Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite :

• [dataset]* Authors, Year, Title, Publisher (repository or archive name), Identifier

*The inclusion of the [dataset] tag at the beginning of the citation helps us to correctly identify and tag the citation. This tag will be removed from the citation published in the reference list.

Preprint policy

Authors retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels, and this does not prevent submission to the journal. For further information see our Online Licensing, Copyright and Permissions policies . If accepted, the authors are required to update the status of any preprint, including your published paper’s DOI, as described on our Author Self-Archiving policy page .

Pre-submission language editing

If your first language is not English, language editing to ensure that the academic content of your paper is fully understood by journal editors and reviewers is optional. Language editing does not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted for publication. For further information on this service, please see the language services webpage.  Several specialist language editing companies offer similar services and you can also use any of these. Authors are liable for all costs associated with such services.

Terms of acceptance

• The Editor does not undertake to return any copies of the manuscript. Contributors are advised to retain at least one copy for themselves.
• Contributions to ELT Journal are sent to members of the Editorial Advisory Panel and acceptance is dependent upon their recommendation for publication. Within approximately three months of receiving it, the Editor will try to let you know whether, and if possible when, your contribution will be published.
• The Editor reserves the right to ask for reformatting of articles not submitted in the way indicated in this guide.
• The Editor reserves the right to make editorial changes in any manuscript accepted for publication to enhance style or clarity. A copy-edited version of the article will be sent to authors for approval, and should be returned with comments and/or corrections by the given date. Please, therefore, give your full address, fax number, and email address (if available).
• The cost of all fees payable for permission to use copyright material shall, unless otherwise agreed, be borne by the author.
• In assigning licence, you may use the article in subsequent publications written or edited by yourself, provided that acknowledgement is made of ELT Journal as the place of original publication, and that permission is obtained from the Publisher.
• The Publisher will normally give permission to a third party to reproduce your work in whole or in part, provided that your consent is also obtained. You are asked to refer to OUP all enquiries from third parties to reproduce your work.
• Please note that by submitting an article for publication you confirm that you are the corresponding/submitting author and that Oxford University Press ("OUP") may retain your email address for the purpose of communicating with you about the article. Please notify OUP immediately if your details change. If your article is accepted for publication OUP will contact you using the email address you have used in the registration process. Please note that OUP does not retain copies of rejected articles.

Open access options for authors

ELT Journal  offers the option of publishing under either a standard licence or an open access licence. Please note that some funders require open access publication as a condition of funding. If you are unsure whether you are required to publish open access, please do clarify any such requirements with your funder or institution.

Should you wish to publish your article open access, you should select your choice of open access licence in our online system after your article has been accepted for publication. You will need to pay an open access charge to publish under an open access licence.

Details of the open access licences and open access charges .

Upon receipt of accepted manuscripts at Oxford Journals, authors will be invited to complete an online copyright licence to publish form. OUP has a growing number of Read and Publish agreements with institutions and consortia which provide funding for open access publishing. This means authors from participating institutions can publish open access, and the institution may pay the charge. Find out if your institution is participating .

Third-party content in open access papers

If you will be publishing your paper under an Open Access licence but it contains material for which you do not have Open Access re-use permissions, please state this clearly by supplying the following credit line alongside the material: Title of content Author, Original publication, year of original publication, by permission of [rights holder] This image/content is not covered by the terms of the Creative Commons licence of this publication. For permission to reuse, please contact the rights holder.

Crossref Funding Data Registry

In order to meet your funding requirements authors are required to name their funding sources, or state if there are none, during the submission process. For further information on this process or to find out more about CHORUS, visit the CHORUS initiative.

Author Toll Free Link and Discounts

All corresponding authors will be provided with a free access link to their article upon publication.  The link will be sent via email to the article’s corresponding author who is free to share the link with any co-authors.  Please see  OUP’s Author Self-Archiving policy  for more information regarding how this link may be publicly shared depending on the type of license under which the article has published.   All authors have the option to purchase up to 10 print copies of the issue in which they publish at a 50% discount. Orders should be placed through this order form . Orders must be made within 12 months of the online publication date.

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Making proposals to ELT publishers

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You want to break into materials writing for ELT, but you have no contacts. One way to get your name and materials known is to send an unsolicited proposal to an ELT publisher. This can show what your ideas about teaching and learning are and what a great writer of classroom materials you are. This article aims to give some help in organizing unsolicited proposals.

Large publishing companies work to long-term publishing plans. The problem for a budding author is that the publisher is not going to share this confidential information with anyone outside the company. As a result, the two commonest reasons for rejecting an unsolicited proposal are: (1) ‘We’re already doing something like that’, and (2) ‘We aren’t planning to do something like that’. However, unsolicited proposals can sometimes be successful for the following reasons:

• Sometimes you’re lucky and your proposal lands on someone’s desk when it’s just what they’re looking for. Given that ELT, like any community, has its zeitgeist, this isn’t as unlikely as you might think.
• If a publisher is impressed by your writing they may ask you to write something for another project, perhaps a workbook, a resource pack or a teacher’s book to start with.
• Plans can be changed if an idea is sufficiently powerful.

Ignore the image from fiction publishing of the huge ‘slush pile’ of unsolicited and unwanted manuscripts mouldering unread in an in-tray. In ELT, we receive surprisingly few unsolicited proposals, and we’re usually glad to get them. Ultimately it’s where a lot of our authors come from: there are very few agents who represent ELT authors.

There are many ways to organize a proposal. What follows is a system which will help the publisher to navigate your proposal. It consists of breaking your proposal into four documents, each with its own clear function.

1. Rationale

This is a document briefly setting out the aims of your proposal. The two main topics you should cover here are market and methodology .

Market Publishers don’t expect you to go into great detail about marketing issues. All you need do is show clearly who the book is for. This is likely to include:

• language level(s)
• type of institution where it may be used
• if it’s general English, business English, ESP, focused on an exam, etc.
• if it’s intended for one particular country or group of countries

As you would probably guess, if your target market is very small (e.g. advanced English for Albanian police officers), large publishers may be reluctant to invest. But that isn’t necessarily the end of the story. Aside from the ‘big four’ in the UK – Cambridge, Pearson, Macmillan and Oxford – there are many local and independent publishers around the world. Pick up catalogues, and try to identify someone who publishes books for similar markets. And with the growth of online publishing, big publishers may be willing to accept specialist material to publish on their websites – onestopenglish is a good example of this.

If your heart is set on working with a larger publisher, revise your proposal to see if you can expand the size of your target market. But be careful if you do this. A book which is aimed at too many disparate markets can easily end up being of little use in any of them. Successful books have clear targets and well-defined personalities.

Methodology A proposal for a coursebook is not an academic essay but when you start to write materials, you immediately take some sort of stance on methodology (i.e. what constitutes good classroom practice). This, in turn, tends to imply beliefs about how learning takes place and how the syllabus should be organized. Make your position explicit. Consider systems – presentation / practice, task-based learning, the lexical approach – and how your material takes account of them or why you have rejected them. Refer to your own experience (‘This works for me’) but back up your ideas by referring to other books or academic writers. Ultimately, you want to show that your book will work well for a large number of teachers, rather than being perfect for some elite group.

Unless you want to write a very specialized book, two pages is usually enough for your rationale – resist the temptation to write more. Regard it as an advertisement rather than a thesis. If you arouse interest you will get lots of opportunities in the future to explain your ideas in depth and detail.

This explains how your publication will be structured. For example, if you are proposing a coursebook, you’ll need to give an idea of how long it will take to teach a unit and how many units there will be in the whole book. Will the units follow a predetermined plan or will they vary? What language areas or topics will be covered? Authors often include a draft syllabus in this section. You may need to list what components you think are necessary, such as student's book, workbook, video, internet, etc. Two pages excluding the syllabus is usually more than enough to cover the outline of the book.

3. Sample materials

The sample materials are the heart of a good proposal. Very often, they are what the publisher will read first and, if they fail to convince, it may not matter much what is in the other documents. You should provide at least ten or twelve pages of writing, organized in a teaching unit or units.

If you are proposing a coursebook, concentrate on the student's book. Only provide workbook exercises, teacher’s notes, etc. if there is some innovative feature in these components which you need to demonstrate. If there are scripted listenings, include the transcripts.

Finally, include a one-page CV focusing on your ELT experience and qualifications. Publishers want to know that you have experience in the area you’re proposing for. It’ll arouse extra interest if you have experience of training other teachers and if you have previously published – whether books, articles or reviews.

5. Copyright

Copyright is ‘inalienable’ under British law. That’s to say, you automatically own the copyright in your works if you created them in your own time using your own materials. You do not register your copyright with a government body.

If you are worried that the publisher will steal your ideas, then send the proposal to yourself in a registered envelope and keep it without opening it. This will show that you wrote it before a particular date.

People may tell you that writing, e.g. ‘© Jim Smith 2001’ on your document protects your rights. It doesn’t. But it does help the publisher if you put the title of the proposal and page numbers in the document footer.

A final note

Publishing companies are large organizations with offices in many countries. Any one employee knows only a small number of their colleagues. Proposals sometimes arrive addressed to ‘the editor’ or ‘the commissioner’. However, in a large publishing company there may well be hundreds of editors and commissioners! They can spend months circulating from desk to desk before arriving where they should.

To avoid this, ring reception at the publishing company’s main offices and get the name – and address – of the person you need. If possible, speak to them: ‘Could you put me through to someone in charge of publishing for Japanese secondary schools?’ Don’t be coy about stating your business – say you’re an author and you want to send in a proposal. You may have to be patient and you may need to make several calls. Every publishing company divides up its markets in different ways. One company may have a publisher for Japan who does secondary books, another may have a secondary publisher for all of Asia …

A few days after sending in the proposal, ring and check that the person has received it. And if your first proposal doesn’t succeed, don’t give up. Some authors peg away for years before they get their break.

This article by the late David Riley originally appeared in the ELT Gazette.

How can I be published by onestopenglish?

Onestopenglish publishes teaching articles, lesson plans, worksheets and other multimedia resources across the ELT spectrum. We generally publish articles and lessons in a series. If you are a keen worksheet writer, then onestopenglish may be a good place to seek to be published.

If you are brand-new to materials writing, we are unlikely to accept you as an author at this stage. However, we recommend you send a lesson plan in to our Lesson share competition . Many ELT authors have started their publishing career here. If we agree that your lesson is good and you win the monthly competition, you will be published! Please be aware, however, that these lessons are chosen several months in advance of their publishing date. Therefore, if you want to send us a topical lesson (for example Christmas or Easter) you should send this in to us at least four months before. Otherwise it may not be published until the following year!

If you have had ELT work published previously by another English language publisher, or are an otherwise experienced materials writer, then we are happy for you to  contact us  via our customer services team. Please mark your query for the attention of onestopenglish, and attach your CV and a writing sample. We will keep your details on file and be in touch if we would like to offer you work. Please note that we do not publish books and cannot forward your proposals on to other teams, but if you have a completed project that can be split into sets of teacher's notes and worksheets, or a proposal for a worksheet project, then we may be interested.  

How can I submit to Macmillan Education?

Macmillan Education generally publishes more traditional resources (for example coursebooks) as well as digital resources for teachers. Details of how to submit your work can be found here .

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