The Language Teacher

Net Nuggets: Academic Journals Larry Davies

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NetNuggets is a monthly column for language educators looking to expand their knowledge of Internet-based resources available for research, lesson plans, pedagogy, or student-usable materials. If you find a resource that you think should appear in this column, please send it to <lbd@gol.com>.

As the Internet is used more and more for language education, instructors are sharing their knowledge at a more rapid pace. There are several WWW-based academic journals keeping up with the ever-increasing body of experience. All of the journals listed below are refereed and are of interest to educators of all languages, though the majority focus on teaching English.

• TESL-EJ <http://www.kyoto-su.ac.jp/information/tesl-ej>. The TESOL Electronic Journal comes out twice a year and, like it's print publication TESOL Journal, it contains articles, and book and other media reviews. TESL-EJ tends to focus on technology in English language teaching, but accepts articles on any topic related to TESOL, whether technology-related or not.
  
• Language Learning and Technology Journal <http://polyglot.cal.msu.edu/llt/>. This journal, based at Michigan State University "seeks to disseminate research to foreign and second language educators in the U.S. and around the world on issues related to technology and language education." The journal premiered in July 1997 with articles seeking to define the research agenda from the year 2000. Some of the more well-known names, such J.D. Brown and Sandra Chappelle, contributed articles to the first volume.
  
• KAIROS, <http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/>. Now in its second year (fourth issue), KAIROS "is designed to serve as a peer-reviewed resource for teachers, researchers, and tutors of writing at the college and university level, including Technical Writing, Business Writing, Professional Communication, Creative Writing, Composition, and Literature. KAIROS deals specifically with the challenges of writing in hypertextual environments, primarily (but not solely) the World-Wide Web. Previous issues looked at Online Writing Labs (OWLs), the use of MOOs and MUDs in collaborative writing, techno-pedagogies and, from the first issue this year, tenure and technology. In addition, there are media and book reviews and MOO-based interviews with academics in various disciplines who employ technology in writing in their classrooms.

Also of note: Thought not related directly to language teaching, the following is worth sampling.

• Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication <http://jcmc.huji.ac.il/>. This journal, which has come out quarterly since 1995, focuses less on linguistic issues and more in the disciplines of sociology, psychology, commerce, communication, and law as it pertains to the Internet. The themes for each issue include Collaborative Universities, Computer Mediated Communication Play, Electronic Commerce, Information Spaces, and the Internet & International Law.