In the latest report of the Scimago Journal Rank (SJR), updated in April 2022, our journal maintained its position in the Quartile 1 of the linguistics and language area. Furthermore, it was categorized in a higher position in the area of education, and it is now in Quartile 2. The classification is reported every year and is based on the evaluation of the journals included in the Scopus database. Figure 1 shows the position of Profile in regard to Colombia, Latin America, and all the publications in the corresponding areas classified in the SJR worldwide.

Note. The report published in 2022 is based on data from 2021. Source: Scimago Journal & Country Rank (https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php)

Figure 1 Classification of Profile in the Scimago Journal Rank, According to the Results Published in April, 2022 

The advancement of Profile in the SJR evidences that it has gained visibility among the most prestigious publications in the areas of language, linguistics, and education in international scenarios. It also means that the journal is a source of reference for the teaching of English, teacher education, applied linguistics, and language.

As we know, the classification is the result of the analysis of the impact of the journals as evidenced in citations received. Thus, the more a publication is cited by a scientific community, the higher the possibility to escalate positions in the rank. This is based on the assumption that contents that are acknowledged via citations are part of active interactions or debates in a field, and thus effectively impact the way knowledge is constructed.

Needless to say, such achievements are very satisfactory for a publication edited outside hegemonic publishing countries, that is to say, the center or anglophone regions. Nonetheless, and as we have argued in other editions, this categorization is controversial. First, the ranking regimes are inequitable because they only process information from a selected group of publications-only those included in the Scopus database. Second, the impact of a journal is mainly measured by taking into consideration the number of citations it receives. This appraisal is extremely restrictive as it does not care for the actual use of articles by individuals or scientific and academic communities. In other words, indicators do not monitor the use of contents in different contexts and for various reasons: teaching practices, teacher education, papers that are not necessarily published, and academic events, among others.

The fact that Profile had been ranked in Quartile 1 was decisive to regain the A1 category in the Colombian National Index for scientific journals, Publindex. Our publication shares this position with six other journals edited in the country and is number one in the areas of education and language. However, this new achievement is not in harmony with the mission and vision we have maintained since our publication started in 2000. Once more, we stress that focusing exclusively on reaching high positions in indexing systems by prioritizing the accomplishment of their evaluation indicators is risky because those authors who do not always have the chance to get published in recognized journals can be excluded. Our commitment is then the same: to foster the publication of research done by teachers, researchers, and novice teacher researchers from different contexts and educational levels, provided they comply with the parameters of quality publications and focus on topics related to English language teaching, innovation, research, and reflections that contribute to the development of this professional area.

In this issue, we are very pleased to share with you 16 articles. Nine correspond to the section Issues from Teacher Researchers, two to the section Issues from Novice Teacher- Researchers, and five to the section Issues Based on Reflections and Innovations. The contributions come from eight countries: Colombia (eight articles), with papers from 14 scholars; Mexico (two articles), with the participation of five scholars; Indonesia (two articles), represented by six scholars; Iran (two articles), with four scholars (one of these articles is a joint effort with a Turkish researcher); Spain, with one article and the perceptions of three academics; and Ecuador and the United States in a joint venture with one article and three participating researchers.

The topics discussed by researchers in the current issue concern teacher training and teacher professional development, teachers’ identities and pedagogical beliefs, language teachers’ effectiveness and self-efficacy, assessment practices, and technology integration within the classroom. Some articles also discuss language teaching methods-among which we find mentoring practices-and research methods such as collaborative autoethnography and the repertory grid technique for interviews. These topics take place both at pre and in-service teaching contexts.

The section Issues from Teacher Researchers opens with an article by Melba Libia Cárdenas, the journal Editor, from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, in Bogotá, Colombia. This paper offers a description of the steps taken to design an action plan to improve some areas within the editorial process of the Profile journal. The guiding objective for the elaboration of such a plan was placing the journal at the core of the generation and consolidation of teachers’ communities, focusing on novice researchers who are starting their professional and academic lives.

This article is followed by a contribution from Ecuador and the United States in a joint effort. Hazel Acosta and Diego Cajas (Universidad Nacional de Educación, Ecuador) and Elizabeth Minchala (Kansas State University, USA) present teacher training in Ecuador as a method of multi-level replication and scaling-up for in-service English teachers. The article emphasizes the training input as a factor that influences the effectiveness and sustainability of an English as a foreign language (EFL) program. The study highlights the crucial role of collaboration that facilitates collective efforts in contextualizing training input to achieve profound insight reflected in classroom practices.

The second contribution from Colombia is the result of joint work between Jhon Eduardo Mosquera-Pérez (Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia) and Jhon Jairo Losada-Rivas (Universidad Surcolombian). The two researchers carried out a qualitative narrative study with the potential of identifying the impact of a master’s program on their students by comparing their identities before and after their participation in the program. The results showed that teachers’ identities are part of an endless process nurtured by experiences at the academic, pedagogical, and personal levels. Most teachers reported developing higher levels of social commitment, critical-reflective engagement, and research-oriented practices due to their graduate academic experience.

The first article from Iran comes from the hand of Akram Nayernia and Rana Nosrati (Iran University of Science and Technology) together with Hassan Mohebbi from the European Knowledge Development Institute (EUROKD) in Ankara, Turkey. The joint project of these three scholars takes us to the field of English language teachers’ effectiveness. This was assessed through a variety of variables: literacy, content and pedagogical content knowledge, experience, oral proficiency, personality type, and self-efficacy. The results of these measurements are visible in a questionnaire with 19 items entitled “EFL Language Teachers’ Effectiveness.”

Burhanuddin Yasin, Usman Kasim, Faisal Mustafa, Saiful Marhaban (Universitas Syiah Kuala), and Endang Komariah (Universitas Lampung) represent the first contribution from Indonesia to our current issue. The article touches the topic of self-efficacy of high school English language teachers with two levels of curriculum literacy. The findings show that teachers with higher curriculum literacy levels were more self-efficacious than those with a lower level of curriculum literacy. This implies that curriculum related courses in preservice teacher programs need to be improved, and in-service teacher training should focus on curriculum knowledge.

The third contribution by Colombian authors is carried out by Indira Niebles-Thevening, Angela Bailey, and Nayibe Rosado (Universidad del Norte). The three researchers explored a teacher evaluation tool to identify critical and reflective aspects of teachers’ practices for professional development. Results suggest that teachers have strong procedural knowledge and perceptions of self but struggle with recognizing unique opportunities for critical approaches to their practice, thus indicating a lean toward more efficient ways of analyzing teachers and focusing on more specific contextual areas in teacher professional development.

The contribution of Spain to the current issue comes from Elisa Pérez-Gracia, Rocío Serrano-Rodríguez, and Alfonso Pontes-Pedrajas (Universidad de Córdoba). These authors tackle the construction of the professional identity of teachers through their beliefs and from the point of view of both male and female teachers. Results show that the participants consider that the teachers’ professional identity is connected to the ability to motivate students, manage the classroom, and worry about interpersonal relations. To conclude, this study brings the chance of reflecting on the importance of strengthening English as a foreign language teachers’ professional identity considering the gender perspective to introduce changes in the curriculum.

Edgar Aguirre-Garzón (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá) and Diego Ubaque-Casallas (Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas) represent the fourth Colombian contribution. Their narrative study analyzes mentoring practices with language student-teachers. Mentors’ narratives include life-story interviews and theorizing from praxis. For mentors, mentoring practices represent a space for knowledge reconfiguration, a locus of collective knowledge construction, and territories where student-teachers can mobilize and exercise their agency. The mentors show a distance from traditional logics and look for knowledge and the self in teacher education.

The last article in this section is the second Indonesian contribution with the article by I Putu Indra Kusuma (Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha). The paper discusses the integration of technology with language teaching in times of the pandemic. Remote teaching was the means through which speaking skills were taught. It is evident that teachers used popular social media such as WhatsApp, YouTube, and educational tools such as Google Forms for classroom management and teaching speaking purposes. This study offers some implications to advance English language teacher education programs to prepare the future EFL preservice teachers in the post-pandemic era.

Section two-Issues from Novice Teacher-Researchers-includes two articles. The first article is a contribution from Cristian Camilo Peynado, María Camila Morales-Triviño (Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas), and Jairo Enrique Castañeda-Trujillo (Universidad Surcolombiana). This is the fifth article originated in Colombia. This article analyzes, through collaborative autoethnography, the experiences of preservice English language teachers within their bachelor’s degree and their pedagogical practicum. This approach empowered the novel researchers to reflect on topics such as the methodologies followed in their undergraduate programs, mentor teachers, native speakerism, colonial ideologies, and decolonization processes. Findings suggest that preservice English language teachers should be allowed to reflect, analyze, and thus contribute to understanding the social dynamics of what it means to teach and be a language teacher.

The second article of this section is the first Mexican contribution to this issue. In it, Diana Leslie Castillo-Nava and Irasema Mora-Pablo (Universidad de Guanajuato) studied the implementation of an international bilingual model from the perspectives of the teachers’, the students’, and the coordinators’ experiences. They consider that the introduction of this model represents both benefits and challenges. With respect to the former, the authors indicated a positive change, focusing on improving teachers’ and students’ linguistic abilities in English. With respect to the latter, the scholars stated the lack of teachers’ training, the context of the university, and teachers’ knowledge of the language.

Our issue closes with the section Issues Based on Reflections and Innovations with the inclusion of five articles. Jesús Alirio Bastidas (Universidad de Nariño), the sixth Colombian contribution, questions if language teaching methods are extinct. The claim comes from many TESOL authorities who questioned the method’s usefulness and scope and favor the arrival of a “post-method era.” Professor Bastidas reflects on this trend and argues that language teaching methods cannot disappear as they are an essential component of any teaching process.

Kenneth Richter, Patricia Houde, and Krisztina Zimányi (Universidad de Guanajuato) represent the second Mexican contribution to this issue. Their reflection concentrates on a research method-the repertory grid technique-for conducting and analyzing interviews within the field of teaching EFL. The research method was piloted, and the authors expect that it will have an impact in the field of applied linguistics and in EFL teaching in particular.

Sonia Patricia Hernández-Ocampo (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana & Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá) is Colombia’s seventh contribution to this issue. Professor Hernández-Ocampo discusses assessment in the language teaching context. The paper presents a review of five Colombian well-known journals during the period 2009-2020 aiming to identify the scholarly discussion regarding language assessment and testing in the country. The findings suggest that Colombian researchers are concerned with fair and democratic assessment practices, and the involvement of students in peer- and self-assessment practices to improve learning and promote autonomy. Also, there is a perceived need for more teacher education in language assessment.

The second Iranian contribution comes from the hand of three researchers, Zia Tajeddin (Tarbiat Modares University), Zari Saeedi, and Vahid Panahzadeh (Allameh Tabataba’i University). The paper reflects on the development and validation of a classroom-based language assessment literacy scale to measure teachers’ perceived classroom-based assessment knowledge and practice. The scale items clustered around four factors: (a) purposes of assessment and grading, (b) assessment ethics, (c) student involvement in assessment, and (d) feedback and assessment interpretation. The findings suggest that the newly-developed scale can serve as a valid and reliable tool to explore language teachers’ classroom-based assessment literacy.

The last article, contributed by Claudia Patricia Gutiérrez (Universidad de Antioquia), is Colombia’s final representative. The author depicts the journey of preservice language teachers from a critical an intercultural perspective through the implementation of an English course containing these elements with first semester preservice students. The results indicate that this approach to language teaching allowed preservice teachers to affirm their multiple identities as they developed and strengthened their language skills in English.