Final chapter in journal editor role

Posted on 1 July 2022

Thursday 30th June 2022 marked the last day of Professor Emma Marsden’s three-year term as Journal Editor of Language Learning, a scientific journal dedicated to the understanding of language learning, following her term as Associate Editor between 1 January 2015 and 30 June 2019.

Language Learning is a top-ranking international peer-reviewed journal that publishes rigorous, original empirical research as well as systematic critical literature reviews, innovative methodological contributions, and high-value replication research. (Impact factor: 4.667; ISIS Journal Citation Reports Ranking 2020: 5/193 [Linguistics]; Google Scholar 2022: 4 [Foreign Language Learning]; Google Scholar 2022: 3 [Language & Linguistics]). It publishes research articles that apply methods of inquiry from disciplines including psychology, linguistics, cognitive science, education, neuroscience, ethnography, sociolinguistics, sociology, and anthropology. It is concerned with fundamental theoretical issues in language learning such as child, second, and foreign language acquisition, language education, bilingualism, literacy, language representation in mind and brain, culture, cognition, pragmatics, and intergroup relations.

During her term as Associate and Journal Editor, Professor Marsden played a leading role in initiatives to promote high-quality methodologies and Open Research practices. For example, all Language Learning authors write an open accessible summary for OASIS, and the journal was the first in the field to adopt Registered Reports to address biases in the research process. In addition, full research materials must now be submitted for review and the journal has continued its close collaboration with IRIS (the open repository for materials and data), such that materials and data held on IRIS are now fully DOI-referenced in Language Learning articles. Although the journal itself is unfortunately not diamond open access, Marsden ensured that as many articles as possible were free to read or published open access and she helped to reduce the post-print embargo period from 24 to 12 months. A new manuscript type was introduced in 2020 entitled Methods Showcase Articles. Between 2019 and 2022, the Journal Editor, working with a team of five Associate Editors, oversaw about 1400 submissions, including approximately 930 ‘new’ manuscripts.

Alongside her roles as Associate and Journal Editor of Language Learning. Professor Marsden has directed the National Centre for Excellence for Language Pedagogy (NCELP) funded by the Department for Education (DfE). NCELP was set up in December 2018 and has since worked in close collaboration with teachers, teacher educators, and researchers to co-produce research-informed classroom resources and professional development to facilitate engagement with research findings, many of which have been published in journals such as Language Learning.