About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Journal on English as a Foreign Language (JEFL) is a peer-reviewed and open-access journal on teaching and learning English as a foreign and second language. The journal follows a double-blind review policy.

The primary objective of this journal is to publish research-based articles that delve into a comprehensive examination of the theories and practices involved in teaching and learning English as a foreign and second language. The specific focus lies on developing and non-English speaking countries. The journal's scope is international, extending a warm invitation to English language practitioners, academics, and researchers with diverse interdisciplinary perspectives. The journal’s scope addresses English language teaching (ELT) and learning areas, including:

  • ELT pedagogy
  • ELT and learning resources
  • ELT and teacher professional development
  • English language teachers' training and education
  • Innovation in ELT
  • Language assessment
  • Technology-based ELT
  • Literacy education in ELT

Peer Review Process

JEFL is a peer-reviewed and open-access journal on teaching and learning English as a foreign and second language. The journal follows a double-blind review policy.

All manuscripts submitted to JEFL undergo a screening and review process by the Editorial Team to ensure that they follow the scope of the journal and have sufficient academic quality and novelty to interest JEFL readers. 

The steps cover: 

Step 1: Initial review (2 weeks time)

Newly-submitted manuscripts will be filtered by the Editorial Team for compliance with the scope of the JEFL and basic stylistic and bibliographic requirements, and for plagiarism using Turnitin software (the paper similarity index should be less than 15%).

If the manuscript is not suitable, it will be rejected without further review. The Editorial Team will email the initial review outcome (desk rejection) to the author.

If the manuscript is suitable, the Editorial Team will email the initial review outcome (accepted for review) to the author.

Step 2: Peer review (2-4 months time)

The manuscript will be assigned to the Editor, who will then send it to at least 2 (two) peer-reviewers in the relevant field to undergo a double-blind peer review.

The review results are: (a) accepted with minor revision, (b) accepted with major revision, (c) accepted as it is, (d) resubmit for review, or (e) rejected.

Decisions on manuscripts will be made after receiving at least two review reports. In cases where the reportsà‚ differà‚ significantly, the Editor will invite additional reviewers before making a decision.

If accepted, the manuscript will be returned to the author for formatting.

If revisions are required, the author must do them as suggested by the reviewers.

Step 3: Revision stage (2 weeks time)

The revisions will be further evaluated by the Editorial Team.

If further corrections are needed, then the cycle will be repeated. The Editor will ask the author for further revision.

Step 4: Final decision

The revised manuscript will be accepted or rejected. This decision depends on the manuscript has been upgraded to a level suitable for publication. If it has not made the necessary changes, the manuscript will be rejected.

If all revisions are finalized, the manuscript will be accepted. Then the Letter of Acceptance (LoA) is assigned to the article and it is sent to the author.

The final decision to accept the manuscript will be made by the Editor-in-Chief based on recommendations from the Editors/following approval by the Editorial Board.

The entire process from submission to publication may take 3-6 months depending on the authors' efforts to do the revisions and slot for publication from the journal.

Publication Frequency

JEFL is scheduled for publication biannually in March and September through the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform.



Open Access Policy

  • JEFL provides immediate open access to its published articles, with authors retaining copyright and free to deposit their work in any repository at any time.
  • Articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. In addition to being freely accessible, they may be copied, shared, or adapted for any lawful purpose in any medium, as long as appropriate credit is given to the author and JEFL and changes are indicated.

Author Fees

JEFL applies an Article Processing Charge (APC) to cover the publication services, including the costs of review administration and management, Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) registration for each paper, checking the article similarity by Turnitin, final editing stage of the paper, and production of articles in PDF. The APC is payable AFTER the manuscript has gone through the full double-blind peer review process, and the Editorial Team has decided to accept the manuscript.

Article Submission: 0.00 (IDR)

Article Processing Charge (APC): IDR 1,500,000 or USD 100, effective from September 2024 (Volume 14, Issue 2)

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Journal on English as a Foreign Language (JEFL) is a peer-reviewed and open-access journal on teaching and learning English as a foreign and second language. The aim is to publish research-based articles which address English language teaching (ELT) and learning areas in the context of English as a foreign and second language as well as related topics that have neither been published elsewhere nor is it under review for publication anywhere.

This following statement clarifies ethical behavior of all parties involved in the act of publishing an article in this journal. This statement is based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

Duties of Editors

  1. Publication Decisions: Based on the review report of the editorial board, the editors of the journal can accept, reject, or request modifications to the manuscript. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editors may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editors may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision. Editors have to take responsibility for everything they publish and should have procedures and policies in place to ensure the quality of the material they publish and maintain the integrity of the published record.
  2. Review of Manuscripts: Editor must ensure that each manuscript is initially evaluated by the editor for originality. The editor should organize and use peer review fairly and wisely. Editors should explain their peer review processes in the information for authors and also indicate which parts of the journal are peer reviewed. Editor should use appropriate peer reviewers for papers that are considered for publication by selecting people with sufficient expertise and avoiding those with conflicts of interest.
  3. Fair Play: The editor must ensure that each manuscript received by the journal is reviewed for its intellectual content without regard to sex, gender, race, religion, citizenship, etc. of the authors. An important part of the responsibility to make fair and unbiased decisions is the upholding of the principle of editorial independence and integrity. Editors are in a powerful position by making decisions on publications, which makes it very important that this process is as fair and unbiased as possible.
  4. Confidentiality: The editor must ensure that information regarding manuscripts submitted by the authors is kept confidential. Editors should critically assess any potential breaches of data protection and patient confidentiality. This includes requiring properly informed consent for the actual research presented, consent for publication where applicable.
  5. Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: The editor of the Journal will not use unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript for his own research without written consent of the author. Editors should not be involved in decisions about papers in which they have a conflict of interest.

Duties of Reviewers

  1. Confidentiality: Information regarding manuscripts submitted by authors should be kept confidential and be treated as privileged information. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.
  2. Acknowledgement of Sources: Reviewers must ensure that authors have acknowledged all sources of data used in the research. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. The reviewers should notify the journal immediately if they come across any irregularities, have concerns about ethical aspects of the work, are aware of substantial similarity between the manuscript and a concurrent submission to another journal or a published article, or suspect that misconduct may have occurred during either the research or the writing and submission of the manuscript; reviewers should, however, keep their concerns confidential and not personally investigate further unless the journal asks for further information or advice.
  3. Standards of Objectivity: Review of submitted manuscripts must be done objectively and the reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments. The reviewers should follow journals’ instructions on the specific feedback that is required of them and, unless there are good reasons not to. The reviewers should be constructive in their reviews and provide feedback that will help the authors to improve their manuscript. The reviewer should make clear which suggested additional investigations are essential to support claims made in the manuscript under consideration and which will just strengthen or extend the work.
  4. Disclosure and Conflict of Interest: Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.  Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers. In the case of double-blind review, if they suspect the identity of the author(s) notify the journal if this knowledge raises any potential conflict of interest.
  5. Promptness: The reviewers should respond in a reasonable time-frame. The reviewers only agree to review a manuscript if they are fairly confident, they can return a review within the proposed or mutually agreed time-frame, informing the journal promptly if they require an extension. In the event that a reviewer feels it is not possible for him/her to complete review of manuscript within stipulated time then this information must be communicated to the editor, so that the manuscript could be sent to another reviewer.

Duties of Authors

  1. Reporting Standards: Authors should present an accurate account of the original research performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Researchers should present their results honestly and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation. A manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable. Manuscripts should follow the submission guidelines of the journal.
  2. Originality and Plagiarism: Authors must ensure that they have written entirely original work. The manuscript should not be submitted concurrently to more than one publication unless the editors have agreed to co-publication. Relevant previous work and publications, both by other researchers and the authors’ own, should be properly acknowledged and referenced. The primary literature should be cited where possible. Original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations.
  3. Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publications: Author should not in general submit the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently. It is also expected that the author will not publish redundant manuscripts or manuscripts describing same research in more than one journal. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Multiple publications arising from a single research project should be clearly identified as such and the primary publication should be referenced
  4. Acknowledgement of Sources: Authors should acknowledge all sources of data used in the research and cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given.
  5. Authorship of the Paper: The authorship of research publications should accurately reflect individuals’ contributions to the work and its reporting. Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to conception, design, execution or interpretation of the reported study. Others who have made significant contribution must be listed as co-authors. In cases where major contributors are listed as authors while those who made less substantial, or purely technical, contributions to the research or to the publication are listed in an acknowledgement section. Authors also ensure that all the authors have seen and agreed to the submitted version of the manuscript and their inclusion of names as co-authors.
  6. Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: All authors should clearly disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
  7. Fundamental Errors in Published Works: If the author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in the submitted manuscript, then the author should promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.
  8. Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects: The author should clearly identify in the manuscript if the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use.

Plagiarism Policy

Journal on English as Foreign Language (JEFL) of Institut Agama Islam Negeri (IAIN) Palangka Raya, Indonesia, recognizes that plagiarism is not acceptable for all authors and therefore establishes the following policy stating specific actions (penalties) when plagiarism is identified by JEFL anti-plagiarism software detection using Turnitin software (https://www.turnitin.com) in an article that is submitted for publication.

Every manuscript submitted for publication in this journal will be checked for plagiarism using Turnitin software. If plagiarism is detected, the authors will be informed and requested to rewrite the text or provide any necessary citations. The manuscript will be eligible for review and publication if the paper similarity index is less than 15%.

“Plagiarism is copying another person’s text or ideas and passing the copied material as your own work. You must both delineate (i.e., separate and identify) the copied text from your text and give credit to (i.e., cite the source) the source of the copied text to avoid accusations of plagiarism. Plagiarism is considered fraud and has potentially harsh consequences including loss of job, loss of reputation, and the assignation of reduced or failing grade in a course."

This definition of plagiarism applies for copied text and ideas:

  1. Regardless of the source of the copied text or idea.
  2. Regardless of whether the author(s) of the text or idea which you have copied actually copied that  text or idea from another source.
  3. Regardless of whether or not the authorship of the text or idea which you copy is known
  4. Regardless of the nature of your text (journal paper/article, web page, book chapter, paper submitted for a college course, etc) into which you copy the text or idea
  5. Regardless of whether or not the author of the source of the copied material gives permission for the material to be copied; and
  6. Regardless of whether you are or are not the author of the source of the copied text or idea (self-plagiarism).

When plagiarism is identified by the Plagiarism Checker (using Turnitin software),  the Editorial Board is responsible for the review of this paper and will agree on measures according to the extent of plagiarism detected in the article in agreement with the following guidelines:

Minor Plagiarism

A small sentence or short paragraph of another manuscript is plagiarized without any significant data or idea taken from the other papers or publications. Punishment: A warning is given to the authors and a request to change the manuscript and properly cite the original sources.

Intermediate Plagiarism

A significant data, paragraph, or sentence of an article is plagiarized without proper citation to the original source. Punishment: The submitted article is automatic rejected.

Severe Plagiarism

A large portion of an article is plagiarized that involves many aspects such as reproducing original results (data, formulation, equation, law, statement, etc.), ideas, and methods presented in other publications. Punishment: The paper is automatic rejected and the authors are forbidden to submit further articles to the journal.

Journal History

Journal on English as a Foreign Language (JEFL), with p-ISSN 2088-1657; e-ISSN 2502-6615, was first published in 2011 (Volume 1 Number 1 in March) by Institut Agama Islam Negeri (IAIN) Palangka Raya, Indonesia. JEFL is a peer-reviewed and open-access journal in teaching and learning English as a foreign and second language. The journal follows a double-blind review policy.

The aim is to publish research-based articles having a depth discussion of the theories and practices of teaching and learning English as a foreign and second language. This journal connects conversational thoughts among English language practitioners and researchers with any interdisciplinary perspectives.

The scope of JEFL addresses English language teaching (ELT) areas in the context of English as a foreign and second language, including:

  • ELT pedagogy
  • ELT and learning resources
  • ELT and teacher professional development
  • English language teachers' training and education
  • Innovation in ELT
  • Language assessment
  • Technology-based ELT
  • Literacy education in ELT

In 2016, JEFL migrated to Open Journal Systems (OJS), the open-source journal management and publishing system and all articles can be accessed online at the Journal website address: https://e-journal.iain-palangkaraya.ac.id/index.php/jefl. JEFL has been indexed on several international academic publication databases, e.g.: Google Scholar, Sinta, ISJD, Mendeley, Moraref, Garuda, etc. Since December 2016, it has been indexed on Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

The alteration has been made since the publication of Volume 6 Number 1 March 2016. The article's format thereupon follows a new article template with one column.

JEFL's new look and improved quality

As of Volume 8 Number 1 March in 2018, the journal has developed into international publication standards, with a greater focus on article quality. This is reflected in JEFL's stricter submissions policy, with more detailed guidelines and thorough screening of articles, as well as aesthetic changes to the journal to increase readability. The cover (front and back covers) of JEFL has been changed into the new one. This change also brought with it a new, more comprehensive editorial policy, which will guide the direction of JEFL into its future as a respected journal in ELT. JEFL now boasts a modernized approach to academic publication, with a streamlined submission, review, and publication process.

In 2017, JEFL became a member of Crossref. So, since 2017 all articles published in JEFL have been included in the inclusion of the article's Digital Object Identifier (DOI). To improve the quality of the journal publication, in November 2018 JEFL collaborated with the Association of Teachers of English Linguistics, Literature, and Education (ELITE Association) in Indonesia [MoU manuscript].

As of Volume 13 Number 2 September 2023, some revisions in the article template have made to improve the quality and acceptability of JEFL regarding the standard of reputed international journals on the journal article template. The revisions focus more on the article structure for consistency: Title; Abstract; Introduction; Literature review; Method; Findings; Discussion; Conclusion; and References.

JEFL's accreditation

Accreditation in 2019 (SINTA 2)

JEFL is nationally accredited by the National Journal Accreditation (ARJUNA) of the Indonesian Directorate General of Higher Education with the Second Grade (PERINGKAT 2 or SINTA 2) dated 8 August 2019 (Decree Number: 23/E/KPT/2019; effective until Vol. 13, No. 1, March 2023).

Reaccreditation in 2022 (SINTA 2)

JEFL is nationally accredited by the National Journal Accreditation (ARJUNA) of the Indonesian Directorate General of Higher Education with the Second Grade (PERINGKAT 2 or SINTA 2) dated 7 December 2022 (Decree Number: 225/E/KPT/2022; effective until Vol. 17, No. 1, March 2027).

JEFL's new management

JEFL is built on the Open Journal Systems (OJS) and applies Open Access Policy. It guarantees immediate open access to its articles to readers. All articles published in JEFL are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. As of Volume 10 Number 2 September 2020, the copyright on articles is retained by the respective author(s), without restrictions.

Towards a reputed international journal, JEFL regularly registers to the international indexing institutions. Now, JEFL is indexed and abstracted in international academic publication databases (See Indexing and Abstracting).

Towards a professional journal management, JEFL has been imigrated from OJS 2 version to OJS 3 since March 2025. 

JEFL's gifts

JEFL got a gift of productive and quality intellectual property rights from KEMENRISTEK-BRIN Indonesia on 18 November 2020. JEFL is categorized as one of the quality Indonesian scientific journals towards international standard indexation.

JEFL's collaborations

  • Yearly (Since 2017), JEFL has collaborated with INACELT (International Conference of English Language Teaching, Linguistics, and Literature). INACELT is an annual international conference hosted by the Department of English Language Education, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Institut Agama Islam Negeri (IAIN) Palangka Raya, Indonesia.
  • JEFL collaborates with the 8th ELITE International Conference 2020, held by the Association of Teachers of English Linguistics, Literature and Education (ELITE Association) in Indonesia.
  • JEFL collaborates with the 2nd ICELS International Conference 2020, The Language Education of Graduate Program, Universitas Negeri Jakarta Indonesia.
  • Yearly (Since 2020), JEFL has collaborated with ICON-ELT (International Conference on English Language Teaching) held by the English Education Study Program, FKIP, Universitas Islam Malang, Indonesia.
  • Yearly (Since 2024), JEFL has collaborated with the International Conference on Language Teaching (ANCOLT), held by the English Education Department, Universitas Kiai Abdullah Faqih (UNKAFA) Gresik, Indonesia.