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BC TEAL Journal Volume 4 Number 1 (2019): i–iii 

Retrieved from https://ojs-o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/346 

Editorial 

 

Scholar-Practitioners Contributing to the English as an Additional Language  

Teaching and Learning Community’s Knowledge Resources 

 

Scott Roy Douglas 

University of British Columbia (Okanagan Campus) 

 

Abstract 

 

This editorial explores the underlying reason for the journal and articulates a stance that 

promotes scholarship as a shared endeavour of everyone in the field of English as an additional 

language teaching and learning. It further offers a definition of a scholar-practitioner that 

underscores professional growth, content and pedagogical knowledge, articulated language, and 

connections between teaching and research. The six articles in the current issue are summarized 

in three groups related to higher education and English for academic purposes, English language 

proficiency testing and student success, and TESOL certificate and graduate student experiences.  

 

From the Editor 

 

The BC TEAL Journal exists to promote scholarship related English as an additional language 

(EAL) teaching and learning, with a particular emphasis on British Columbia. The journal takes 

a stance that promotes scholarship as a shared endeavour of everyone in the field, with the roles 

of teachers, theorists, and researchers understood as interchangeable and shared. Teachers 

engage in research and build theory, theorists test theory through teaching and research, and 

researchers put findings into practice and develop principles to guide that practice. Thus, 

scholarship and practice become intertwined, with the BC TEAL Journal providing an outlet to 

share that scholarship and build the community’s knowledge resources.  

 

 With the intertwining of scholarship and practice, the authors, peer reviewers, editors, 

and readers of the BC TEAL Journal can be conceptualized as scholar-practitioners. Macintyre 

Latta et al. (2017) have identified four aspects that help define what it means to be a scholar-

practitioner. First of all, being a scholar-practitioner entails a deep commitment to continuous 

professional growth, with scholar-practitioners seeing themselves as students of learning 

throughout their careers. Next, scholar-practitioners understand that knowing how to teach is just 

as important as knowing what to teach. This pedagogical and content knowledge comes from the 

teaching and learning community, and as scholar-practitioners draw from that community, they 

also commit to sharing with the community to guide and support other educators. Third of all, 

scholar-practitioners develop a language for articulating how they teach as well as why they 

teach the way they teach to strengthen education both at home and farther afield. Finally, 

scholar-practitioners read the literature in their field to find connections between teaching and 

research while growing their abilities to understand this literature with a critical mind and, when 

applicable, use or adapt it for their own teaching and learning contexts.  

 

 The current issue of the BC TEAL Journal presents the work of nine scholar-practitioners 

in six articles. Two of the articles in the current issue focus on higher education and English for 

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 Douglas ii 

BC TEAL Journal Volume 4 Number 1 (2019): i–iii 

Retrieved from https://ojs-o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/346 

academic purposes (EAP). The first article in this issue identified the importance of teaching 

independent study skills in an EAP setting. Time management, reflective skills, and focus 

strategies were key elements that benefitted students (Landry, 2019). Jabeen, Wang, and Cheng 

(2019) also looked at EAP and higher education. They reviewed the literature related to 

academic engagement, social integration, and academic socialization for students using EAL in 

post-secondary settings. Their review underscored the importance of supporting students using 

EAL as they engage with a possibly unfamiliar academic culture. 

 

Two more articles in this issue are also concerned with EAL in post-secondary settings, but focus 

more on English language proficiency testing. Devos (2019) investigated the English language 

proficiency of students in their first term of studies at a post-secondary polytechnic institute, and 

then compared the differences based on language and educational backgrounds, with the goal of 

creating locally developed testing instruments to support students. Also in a post-secondary 

setting, Stigger (2019) carried out a review of the literature related to international student 

success and performance on the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) 

examination. She found positive and negative correlations between success and IELTS scores as 

well as a theme related to language ability and social adaptation.  

 

Finally, the current issue has two articles exploring the experiences of certificate and graduate 

students in the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). Wu (2019) 

asked what factors contributed to graduates from a TESOL certificate program finding TESOL-

related jobs. She found a wide range of employment outcomes that depended on the forms of 

capital they held in the TESOL profession. At the graduate student level, Anderson and Okuda 

(2019) wrote about their experiences completing their manuscript-style doctoral dissertations, 

outlining elements specific to writing this type of dissertation and providing guidance to graduate 

students and their supervisors. 

 

With the completion of the 2019 issue of the BC TEAL Journal, six articles that underwent 

mutually anonymous peer review, in which the identities of the authors and the reviewers were 

kept confidential from each other, have now been published. Many thanks go out to all of the 

volunteer reviewers and editors who contributed their time and effort to making this issue a 

success. As the scholarly journal of the Association of British Columbia Teachers of English as 

an Additional Language (BC TEAL), the journal continues to contribute to the organization’s 

mission to raise awareness, provide professional development, and share expertise in the field of 

English as an additional language teaching and learning.  

 

References 

 

Anderson, T., & Okuda, T. (2019). Writing a manuscript-style dissertation in TESOL/applied 

linguistics. BC TEAL Journal, 4(1), 33–52. Retrieved from https://ojs-

o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/334  

Devos, N. (2019). Comparing first-term students’ English language proficiency at a Canadian 

polytechnic institute. BC TEAL Journal, 4(1), 53–83. Retrieved from https://ojs-

o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/335  

  

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BC TEAL Journal Volume 4 Number 1 (2019): i–iii 

Retrieved from https://ojs-o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/346 

Jabeen, R., Wang, P., & Cheng, L. (2019). Academic engagement, social integration, and 

academic socialization: English as an additional language in higher education. BC TEAL 

Journal, 4(1), 95–107. Retrieved from https://ojs-

o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/337  

Landry, M. (2019). The efficacy of teaching independent study skills within English for 

academic purposes programs. BC TEAL Journal, 4(1), 1–12. Retrieved from https://ojs-

o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/316  

Macintyre Latta, M., Cherkowski, S., Crichton, S., Klassen, W., & Ragoonaden, K. (2017). 

Investing in communities of scholar-practitioners. Teacher Learning and Professional 

Development, 2(1), 32–47. Retrieved from 

http://journals.sfu.ca/tlpd/index.php/tlpd/article/view/31  

Stigger, E. (2019). The correlation between IELTS scores and international students’ academic 

success: A literature review. BC TEAL Journal, 4(1), 84–94. Retrieved from https://ojs-

o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/339  

Wu, Z. V. (2019). Factors contributing to TESOL employment: A graduate perspective. BC 

TEAL Journal, 4(1), 13–32. Retrieved from https://ojs-

o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/336  

 

 

 
The BC TEAL Journal is licensed under a 

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. 

Copyright rests with the authors. 

 

 

 

 

https://ojs-o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/346
https://ojs-o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/337
https://ojs-o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/337
https://ojs-o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/316
https://ojs-o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/316
http://journals.sfu.ca/tlpd/index.php/tlpd/article/view/31
https://ojs-o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/339
https://ojs-o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/339
https://ojs-o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/336
https://ojs-o.library.ubc.ca/index.php/BCTJ/article/view/336
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

