Dear Focus on ELT Journal Readers,

As we all know, selecting an appropriate publication outlet for scholarly work is a crucial decision. In this context, we believe that Focus on ELT Journal is the right outlet for potential contributions to the field of English Language Teaching since we ensure that contributions meet the target audience at their best form after a rigorous blind peer-review process. We also believe that with every issue, we are getting better recognition and building a reliable and trustworthy name in the field, therefore reminding us of the heavy responsibility to set the quality bar high for the upcoming issues.

We are very happy to announce that the second issue of volume three in 2021 of Focus on ELT Journal includes five contributions, three of which are research articles featuring particular topics in language learning and teaching with different paradigms. This issue also covers two book reviews, recently published, giving comprehensive views about English language learner resources for supporting writing skill and the scope of teacher autonomy. It is noteworthy to state that with this issue, our journal has completed the third year in the field of ELT, which not only makes us excited and motivated for the next issues but also lays a burden on us to go forward and make more efforts contributing to our specific field with more relevant and robust studies.

As a reminder, we ensure that during the editorial decision-making processes for the manuscripts submitted to our journal, we follow stringent publication ethics and rigorous external and internal reviewing cycles with the help of our esteemed editorial team and dedicated reviewers, to whom we express our gratitude and special thanks in Reviewers for Volume 3/2021 section. As editors, we incessantly attempt to enter major abstracting/indexing databases, and this effort has continuted with our applications to major international indexing databeses. Since the first issue of 2021, we have entered four international indexes, DOAJ, ICI Journals Master List, Base and Scilit.

With our December 2021 issue, we believe that researchers, academicians and practitioners in the field of ELT will greatly benefit from the three published articles exploring particular topics in language learning and teaching using different research methods and data collection tools. Furthermore, our readers have also gained an opportunity to have deep insights about two book reviews featuring on language learner resources to support writing and developing teacher autonomy through action research. Here we would like to the editorial synopsis of the articles and book reviews in our second issue of Volume 3.

The first paper of the current issue has been co-authored by Xiaoli Yu (Middle East Technical University) and Veysel Altunel (Atilim University). Yu and Altunel (2021)attempted to establish a frequency-based Turkish English loanword cognates word lists (TELCWL) in a sample group of Turkish English learners. In their articles, the authors give certain information about cognates, loanwords and loanword cognates for L2 learning and language education. For this specific study, two base word list were selected by the authors in order to determine Turkish English loanword cognates; The New General Service List (NGSL) and Frequency Dictionary of Words (FDW). They found out that TELCWL makes a contribution among Turkish English learners specifically for improving learners’ reading and writing skills. Also, they stated that the scope and impact of TELCWL is of significance value in certain disciplines, that is, field-specific corpora not only for Turkish learners but also those who want to improve their proficieny levels. The authors conclude their article with pedagocical implications for English instructors and practitioners in line with the usages of TELCWL in English classrooms. With this article, the readers may learn the nature and importance of loanword cognates in field-specific corpora and benefit from the wordlists in English classrooms.

The second paper is authored by Ayşe Nesil Demir from Yozgat Bozok University. Demir (2021)presents an extended literature review systematically on in-service teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. In her review, the author found 31 articles using important databases (Elsevier, Taylor & Francis Online, Wiley Online Library, Google Scholar, the JSTOR digital library, Education Source, ERIC (EBSCO), Sage Journal, Cambridge Core, Research Gate, and Research Online) and included them after careful investigation in line with inclusion criteria. The articles were published in the past six years, 2015-2021. As is known, self- efficacy, an impeccable part of teacher education, is closely related to enhancing teachers’ capacity and value for the benefit of teacher-student engagement, which makes teachers more confident and efficient. Thus, this study opens us a window with the recent steps and implications in teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs showing the latest articles and reminding us of the value and dynamic nature of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, self-confidence, and abilities. For those who want to learn more and improve themselves about self-efficacy beliefs in teacher education, this study can contribute to their present and previous knowledge.

Our last article in this issue belongs to Sibel Can Acar from Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University. Acar (2021)gives us certain information about the gender representations in the English coursebook entitled ‘Progress’ published by the Turkish Ministry of Education. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the gender representations in the selected English coursebook in relation to occupational roles, leisure time and household activities, that is, to gain a broader view about the usages of male-female characters and images in text and visual discourse. For this purpose, the author employed a qualitative research design. The data were collected from English coursebooks published in 2019 by the Turkish ministry of education. Due to the difficulty of conducting the content analysis for the whole book, the author used four units for data analysis. The results of the study show that there is an both equality and inequality in the quantity and quality of the roles/activities assigned to male and female characters.

The first book review on teaching writing in the context of inclusivity belongs to Haris Haq from Georgia State University. In his review, Haq (2021)presented a detailed overview of the target book entitled Writing for change: An advanced ELL resource. The author illustrated how the book could be seen a resource that combined pedagogy with inclusivity and benefitted from various models and activites for promoting writing. The researchers who have been working on writing skill can benefit from this book review and have an idea about language learning resources to support writing.

The second book review in our issue comes from Erzsébet Ágnes Békés (Universidad Nacional de Educación). Békés (2021)wrote a her review about teacher autonomy in line with the theoretical aspects of action research in teacher education. The review is about the the book called Developing language teacher autonomy through action research. The author in this review gives a comprehsive overview about teacher autonomy together with action research which enables teachers to develop their professional development. Considering the emergent importance of action research and autonomy in the latest literature in ELT, this review can contribute researchers and practitioners to have a broader sense of feeling about teacher autonomy.

Before we conclude our editorial for the second issue of 2021, once again, it is worthy to share the news that our journal has decided to start publishing ‘Special Issues’ supported by guest editors and researchers in the next issues along with the regular issues published in June and December each year. Our guest editors, Prof. Dr. Ferit Kılıçkaya (https://orcid.org/0000- 0002-3534-0924) and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sedat Akayoğlu (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9865- 2546), have been accepting potential articles and managing the editorial process of their special issue scheduled to be published in the second quarter of 2022. Availing of this opportunity, we would like to cordially thank our guest editors for handling the manuscripts, inviting reviewers, and finalizing the submissions in our journal system.

Last but not least, we would like to invite all researchers and practitioners to to consider Focus on ELT a venue with stringent publication ethics for their articles focusing on English Language Teaching and Learning issues to be featured in the forthcoming regular issues in June and December, 2022.

References

Acar, S. C. (2021). An investigation into gender representations in an Enlish coursebook. Focus on ELT Journal, 3(2), 51-64. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.4

Békés, E. A. (2021). Book Review: Developing language teacher autonomy through action research. Focus on ELT Journal, 3(2), 69-72 https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.6

Demir, A. N. (2021). An extended literature review on in-service EFL teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. Focus on ELT Journal, 3(2), 36-50. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.3

Haq, H. (2021). Book Review: Writing for change: An advanced ELL resource. Focus on ELT Journal, 3(2), 65-68. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.5

Yu, X., & Altunel, V. (2021). Creating a frequency-based Turkish-English loanword cognates word list (TELCWL). Focus on ELT Journal, 3(2), 5-35. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2021.3.2.2