Focus on ELT Journal (FELT) Vol 2, Issue 1, 2020 ISSN: 2687-5381 Editorial Note: Letter from Editors-in-Chief https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00201 aAhmet Başal bCeyhun Yükselir and cErdem Akbaş a Assoc. Prof. Dr., Yıldız Technical University, Turkey, abasal@yildiz.edu.tr b Assist. Prof. Dr., Osmaniye Korkut Ata University, Turkey, ceyhunyukselir@osmaniye.edu.tr c Assist. Prof. Dr., Erciyes University, Turkey, erdemakbas@erciyes.edu.tr Dear Focus on ELT Journal Readers, On behalf of the editorial board, it is our privilege and great pride to announce the release of Volume 2 Issue 1 of ‘Focus on ELT’ (FELT). Devoted to and focused on solely to the English language teaching and learning, FELT is an open source journal and accepts articles written from a theoretical or applied perspective with the possible applications to the field of English language teaching and learning. In spite of being a relatively new journal in the field, we are happy to have received a great number of submissions from local and international scholars. With the help of invaluable time, dedication and constructive feedback of our editorial team and reviewers of this particular issue, we have been able to select high-calibre original scientific studies relevant to the field. We therefore thank members of our community for their encouragement, continuous support and interest. With this in mind, we are truly confident that the future of our journal is promising. We believe that our community, specifically practitioners, researchers and academicians in the field of English language teaching and learning shall greatly benefit from each of the articles in the current issue. The first issue of Volume 2 features four articles investigating various topics with respect to the field and shares detailed findings for particular cases. Availing this opportunity, we would like to inform our readers that FELT starts accepting book reviews in the field of English language teaching and learning from Vol 2 Issue 2, 2020 in December. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.2020.00014 mailto:abasal@yildiz.edu.tr mailto:ceyhunyukselir@osmaniye.edu.tr mailto:erdemakbas@erciyes.edu.tr https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4295-4577 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4781-3183 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2204-3119 Başal, A., Yükselir C. & Akbaş, E. / Focus on ELT Journal, 2(1), (2020) 2 The first paper of the issue titled ‘Test Anxiety in the Foreign Language Learning Context: A Theoretical Framework’ is authored by Ferdane Denkci Akkaş, Selami Aydın, Asiye Baştürk Beydilli, Tülin Türnük and İlknur Saydam. The study mainly deals with a theoretical framework of test anxiety in the foreign language learning context. The researchers focus on the conceptualization of test anxiety with a historical view to the research in the field and various relevant accompanying issues to shed light on how it could be related to the test performance, particularly in foreign language learning environment. Considering the relation between foreign language learning and affective states, the article concludes with a set of recommendations in order to decrease the effect of test anxiety in the learning process. The second paper of the issue titled ‘The Effects of Reflective Teaching Techniques on Teachers’ Self-Evaluation for Further Lessons: Analysis through Diary Keeping’ by İsmail Çakır and İrem Işık investigates the reflective teaching practices by focusing on the attitudes and beliefs of English language teachers. Presenting the importance of reflective teaching in the area of teacher education and teaching pedagogy, the authors also explore if the diary keeping could be one of the effective ways of reflective teaching and self-evaluation of the teachers. The qualitative data coming from four language teachers through interviews and diaries reveal that language teachers made a great use of reflection in the process helping them go deeper and realize the classroom practices and issues leading to a sort of autonomy while making decisions for their own classrooms. The participant teachers clearly identified their weaknesses and strengths in their teaching atmosphere, which stands out to be a useful practice for the sake of self-evaluation. The third paper of the issue titled ‘Suggested Syllabus for World Englishes and Culture Elective Course at ELT Departments’ is authored by Kürşat Cesur and Sezen Balaban. The article attempts to suggest the potential integration of World Englishes (WE) and Culture course into the undergraduate curriculum of English Language Teaching programme and share a syllabus specifically designed for this module. Following a mixed method sequential exploratory research design, the researchers collected core documents (i.e. research articles about WE and Culture, books and other syllabi from universities offering such a module) to decide the core topics with respect to WE and Culture by a content analysis. Following this, sixty-three teacher trainers in Turkish context via google forms were asked to order the significance of items in the suggested syllabus. The document analysis revealed a range of key issues ranging from ‘the effect of culture on language teaching’ and ‘English culture and history’ to ‘the use of English as an international language’. On top of selecting the item of ‘the effect of culture on language teaching’, the teacher trainers seemed to have believed the suggested course syllabus should have a topic dealing with ‘raising awareness on WE and Culture’ at undergraduate level. The article also presents a suggested syllabus for the module at the end for the practitioners who are into offering such a module in their contexts. Başal, A., Yükselir C. & Akbaş, E. / Focus on ELT Journal, 2(1), (2020) 3 The fourth paper of the issue by Hong Yu Connie Au and Filiz Yalçın Tılfarlıoğlu titled ‘Non-critical Analysis of EFL Classroom Discourse in a Speaking Course through Bowers’ model’ explores an authentic spoken discourse of an EFL class by employing Bowers’ model (1980) to examine various teaching functions and how they enhanced the speaking opportunities for students. The researchers sought to answer the research question regarding the distribution of L1 and Target Language, distribution of student talking time and teacher talking time, patterns of teacher-student interaction, and functions of classroom discourse based on Bower’s model in a beginner level EFL class by using structured classroom observation and transcriptions as the data collection tools. The study sheds light on complex dynamics of discourse in an EFL speaking class by focusing the interactions between teachers and learners. Since publishing a journal is one of the most intriguing processes in academia, we are happy to be part of this and devoted to do our best for the continuity of our ‘crawling’ journal. One of the objectives of this journal is to encourage publication from various contexts addressing issues from different perspectives as is outlined above. We therefore would like to welcome submissions to discuss the latest developments in the field of English Language Teaching and Learning for the future issues of Focus on ELT Journal. We look forward to welcoming you once again in the second issue of Volume 2 in December 2020. Copyrights Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the Journal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY-NC-ND) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).