The end of my studies at the university was drawing near, and looking into the future I was beginning to speculate about how I would develop my professional expertise after I graduated. Having already taught for some time, I knew that teachers could select from a wide spectrum of learning projects: in-service courses, conferences and course book presentations promised a profitable way, or I could take the easy option: I could read. 

Thus for my M.A. thesis (Gaálné Vörös, 2001), which I wrote at the University of Pécs, I decided to investigate what novELTy, a journal of English language teaching and cultural studies in Hungary, could offer to teachers who were determined to improve themselves. The journal seemed to be an excellent source as it informed about events, offered teaching tips and reviews on published material available on the book-market, and, what is essential for those who intend to cultivate their "teaching philosophy" (Medgyes, 1994, p. 103), it included research articles on serious topics involving implications for the intended readership. 

Another question I investigated was the style of novELTy, that is, whether it was both academic and at the same time reader-friendly. In other words, I intended to clarify what devices had been applied to meet the objectives of scholarly writing and to make the articles understandable not only for experts, but for a wide audience of teachers. 

In this paper, which is based on my MA thesis, first I will review current issues in academic writing. Then focusing on research articles, I will describe various features of the journal. Finally, I will present a survey of 50 novELTy readers who gave feedback about what they thought of the journal, its credibility, usefulness and style. 

Central issues in academic publishing

Academic journals, such as novELTy, are often university-based and involve academic editors, who take responsibility for content and quality. The staff also includes consulting and advisory academic reviewers (referees) who evaluate the submissions before they are accepted for publication and production editors (copy editors) who copy-edit and proofread the manuscripts. Grabe and Kaplan (1996) established that the referee system filters what can or cannot be seen in print, and writers should strive to intrigue and convince the referees (representatives of the discourse community) in order for their work to be accepted. Consequently, power is concentrated in the hands of this group, of the so-called `old boy network' as they are generally recruited by informal professional contact. 

This power is felt stronger when individuals are forced, maybe indirectly, to publish. The `publish or perish' notion of academia, when published works are seen as indicators of the quality of scholarship, threatens teachers mainly in higher education and has led to more manuscripts than ever before. Thus, it seems that the primary producers of professional articles are academics. Furthermore, as writers should build upon the knowledge canon (the work of previous scholars) and respect the current knowledge matrix (recent trends and paradigms), academics are also the ones who are probably the primary consumers of those texts. Aside from these, currently, practicing teachers are encouraged to report innovations and to engage in professional writing (Grundy, 2001). How productive they were in novELTy will be discussed further below. 

English scholarly writing is assumed to be clear, carefully edited and organised following academic conventions, and according to some critics formal style and organisation are more important than content (Clyne, 1991). Recently contemporary academic writing has become almost like a social game (Hyland, 1999), and as Bhatia (1999) states in a given discipline it is always the professional community the writer intends to join that dictates the rules of the game and forms its practices. 

On the basis of recent research in applied linguistics, it is essential to achieve successful interaction with the readers, so that they are open to the writer's arguments (Hyland, 1999). Thus, the writer should employ rhetorical strategies influenced by practices in the discipline. One of the aspects of rhetorical consciousness is the appropriate use of informal elements. According to Chang and Swales (1999) there has been a shift primarily in soft disciplines, including applied linguistics, toward styles where broad references, split infinitives and final prepositions are not strictly banned. The result of their study also shows that although direct questions, run-on sentences, sentence fragments, contractions and exclamations are features that writers should avoid according to writing guidebooks and manuals, they do exist in scholarly writing. This indicates a tension between authorial practice and linguistic prescriptivism. 

Many authors writing for a mixed audience face the dilemma whether they should be informal or should follow standard forms which result in faceless and impersonal texts? Within applied linguistics, they should probably not ignore conventions. Would-be writers, however, can benefit from current editorial policy in which the compositional boundaries of conventional academic writing are pushed back making a more audience-friendly academic style possible. If and to what extent this is happening in the case of novELTy, was also part of my investigations. 

Arguments for reading theoretical and research articles

It is often questioned whether reading theoretical texts has any importance for practicing teachers when they face practical problems in the teaching profession. The answer is yes, if we consider that researchers always refine theoretical issues or advance new theories that disprove or expand previous ones. It is well-known that pre-service education cannot ensure a complete set of principles that may guide would-be teachers in their everyday work throughout their career. For a possible solution Kiss (1998) and Magnuczné Godó (2000) have suggested life-long learning based on reflection, defining reflectiveness as one of the most important characteristics of successful and credible teachers (Medgyes, 1994). 

Another often raised question is whether empirical research is relevant for practicing teachers when they generally do not conduct research themselves? Dörnyei (1997) answers positively, but he adds that those research projects should meet two criteria: 

1. "Research should be teacher-friendly. 

2. Teachers should be research-friendly" (p. 17).

Commenting on his principles, Dörnyei argues that teacher-friendly research adopts a theme or problem that is derived from the classroom. However, he adds that research has to have a good balance of theory and practice: even when it examines issues raised by teachers and presents results that are applicable for teachers, it should be matched with or built on a theoretical background. In addition, it is not enough to speak about teacher-related issues if the interpretation of the research is accessible merely to researchers: technical terms (jargon) or a great amount of information can constrain understanding. 

The other important criterion for the dissemination of such research is that teachers themselves should be research-friendly. Readers should devote time to reading research articles. Dörnyei was quite sceptical about this in 1997, claiming that practicing teachers do not generally read academic journals due to lack of time and energy for which he blamed the Hungarian social context. Nevertheless, the editors of novELTy- considering the journal as the "flagship of the IATE-Fleet" (Horváth & Nikolov, 1996, p. 4) - placed the Article section at the front of the journal, indicating its importance and usefulness for the readership.

Method

To examine how novELTy met editorial efforts and requirements for teacher-friendly scholarly writing, I gathered information on what had appeared in the Article section and on the aspects that may influence content. To reveal consistent editorial endeavours, I analysed the volumes and issues of an already finished period edited between 1996 and 1998 by Nikolov Marianne and Horváth József. This choice was supported by the fact that the journal got its shape and most of its content features during that time, and the current editorial team seems to follow the same editorial policy. I examined three issues:

1. Whose articles were published? 
2. What types of articles were published? 
3. What academic conventions were observed in research articles? 

First, I investigated the professional status and work-context of the authors. Secondly, I identified and classified the themes covered by the articles. Assuming a relationship between theme and author, I examined how the author's affiliation and nationality influenced his or her choice in the subject of the articles. Thirdly, I intended to reveal how the research was reported, that is, how the scholarly argument was presented to make it acceptable for the academic community. I collected descriptive data for all the issues published in the period of 1996-1998 regarding the authors and the topic or theme of the articles and summarised the results in frequency charts. Then I did a detailed examination of 8 selected articles for academic style and certain discourse features.

Then, to see the other side of the coin, I collected data from the readers, too. My aim was to reveal how novELTy meets the needs and interests of its readership. As the list of subscribers is not public, I posted a message on the `Bulletin Board' of Number 2 Volume 7 (p. 89), in which I asked the readers to get in touch with me on a voluntary basis so that I could send a questionnaire to them (see Appendix A). As a result, several readers contacted me and offered their assistance in my research. They also gave me the name and address of others who may also read the journal. Finally 50 questionnaires arrived filled in, which represented a 46% return rate. Since the questionnaires were posted during the summer months, this rate seems to be quite high to me, indicating the interest of the readers in the research. 

In questioning the readers, my aim was to find connections between their personal situations and their points of view expressed on the journal. I assumed that the journal was regarded differently by respondents working in different circumstances. I also supposed that not all non-Hungarian respondents spoke or read Hungarian well (see Kontra, 1997) thus the language of the questionnaire was English. It was designed to be only one A4 page long: so that it would not take a long time to complete. In the first section with Items 1 and 2 (see Appendix B), I asked readers to identify the widely read and unread sections of the journal. Then, Items 3, 4, and 5 were intended to elicit feedback about the credibility, usefulness and style of the articles. The second section dealt with the participants' personal details: with their citizenship, ELT interest, gender and age. 

Results and discussion 

Descriptive features: The authors

Readers of scholarly journals find the authors' professional credibility important, and they wish to know whether writers function as scholars and whether they have contributed to a discipline. In novELTy, bio notes, that is, biographical notes are published at the end of the articles. Their function is partly to give readers information about the authors' professional background, including workplace, position, experience, interest and expertise, and partly to facilitate contact with the authors, even if no specific addresses are published. 

As can be seen in Table 1, 59 of the total 71 authors worked in higher education (college or university) and three of them did scientific research as full-time Ph. D. students. The number of contributors from secondary school was also 3 and another 3 worked as BC contractees. There was only one article written by a primary school teacher. The number of student contributors was 2. This result is not surprising considering that university and college teachers are expected to publish regularly in professional journals - Ph.D. students are also motivated to do so- in contrast to those in primary and secondary education. Obviously, this is not to suggest that secondary or primary school teachers are not good at scholarly writing. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to see to what extent practicing teachers are able to contribute as professional writers to scholarly publishing in other ELT journals, too.

Another important factor that influences the content of articles in novELTy is the author's nationality. Below the title of the articles, readers can often spot non-Hungarian names; however, on the basis of the information included in the bio notes one can hardly decide whether the author is a native or non-native speaker of English. Nationality, however, can influence how authors write or what they write about. Obviously, native English people and non-natives write in English differently (for further details see contrastive rhetoric in Grabe & Kaplan, 1996 and Kiszely in this issue), but in novELTy and other international applied linguistics journals, writers of any nationality should follow the same scholarly standards. Still, it is important to consider how the ELT interest of non-Hungarian authors meets that of the Hungarian readership, bearing in mind that the journal is disseminated primarily in Hungary, however its online version in 1997 made it available to a worldwide audience. 

The names and data in the bio notes show that 49 of the 71 contributors were Hungarian and 22 were non-Hungarian. No statistical data are available to compare this result with the proportion of Hungarian and non-Hungarian teachers working in higher or secondary education in Hungary (Ligeti, 1999). Information in the bio notes also reveals that the British Council employed many of the non-Hungarian writers as advisors. From the bio notes it becomes apparent that 10 of the 22 non-Hungarian contributors were not stationed in Hungary. 

It can also be revealed how the proportion of female and male contributors in novELTy differed from the average teacher population in Hungary, although it should be kept in mind that the issue of gender does not influence the quality of scholarly text. According to statistical information published by the Hungarian Ministry of Culture and Education (Csécsiné Máriás, 1999), the percentage of women in higher education was 37-38% in the period examined in this article; however, this proportion was much higher in teacher-training colleges (48-61%). Comparing this data with the distribution of the male and female writers in the articles published in novELTy, it can be seen that the number of female contributors was higher (57%) than the average in higher education shown by national statistics, rather approaching the percentage of females in lower primary teacher-training colleges (61%). It would be interesting to find out why women published more than men in novELTy, but on the basis of the published sources which I was able to access I was unable to discover any scholarly answer to this query. However, it seems certain to me that future gender studies on academic publishing cannot accuse the editors of the journal of being discriminative against female authors. 

The topic of articles

Dörnyei maintains (1997) that the theme of the research article influences to what extent the research is teacher-friendly. The editors of novELTy claimed that "contributors in 1996 have included the best ELT professionals, who have shared their classroom-based research findings" (Nikolov & Horváth, 1996, p. 142). But how did the research fields of these professionals coincide with the interests of the readership? Having examined the themes of the articles, I was able to document the ELT interests of the writers and how frequently each field appeared in print.

Frequency data in Table 2 show that the articles provided an insight into a wide spectrum of ELT subjects and fields, ranging from computer-assisted language learning (CALL) to writing. Still, the theme of testing dominated the pages of novELTy in the period examined, followed by teacher training, methodology and motivation. Although most of the articles were concerned with more than one ELT field, the results show that between 1996 and 1998 testing was put in the focus of interest of the journal. Areas covered within the field of testing included issues of the Hungarian school-leaving, entrance and state exams, proficiency and oral testing. If one considers that between 1996 and 1998 the traditional input controlled curriculum shifted towards a new output-controlled system (see National Core Curriculum, 1995) and that external state examinations strongly influenced foreign language teaching even at public schools (Fekete, Major & Nikolov, 1999), it is not surprising that in novELTy many innovative and topical ideas were published in the field of testing. 

As practicing teachers in primary and secondary education do not generally specialise in one academic field, it is not only the theme of research that may influence what is relevant to their interests but the setting - primary, secondary, pre-service, in-service - in which the research was conducted. As in scholarly articles, authors describe the context in which the research is conducted (participants and scenes), I was able to identify the main course types that the articles of novELTy concentrated on. The results appear in Table 3.

The figures in Table 3 show that many articles (17) dealt with pre-service education in the research, and there is no remarkable difference between the number of articles that responded to primary or secondary ELT subjects or problems (13-12). Approximately 20% of the articles did not focus on a specified level of education but addressed a wide general teacher audience. A somewhat smaller set of articles reported on postgraduate educational issues and on in-service or re-training programs. The publication of articles on Russian teacher retraining reflects the Hungarian social context of the 1990s when Russian ceased to be compulsory and there was an increasing demand for more teachers of English. Still, the results suggest that many authors who dealt with themes connected to their institutional affiliation wrote for an implied audience in higher education.

As far as non-Hungarian authors are concerned, I found that the themes of their articles drew on the ELT experience they gained at home or abroad (see Coleman, 1998; Dalrymple, 1997; Grundy & Li, 1998). It is not surprising that non-Hungarian BC contractees dealt with themes relating to in-service or mentor training if you consider the BC itself ran projects in these areas, too (see Allan, 1997; Bodóczky, 1997). In addition, as co-authors with their Hungarian colleagues they were able to access the daily work of primary and secondary school teachers (see Szûr, & Parrot, 1998) 

Academic style

The authors of novELTy tend to mix formal and informal language in a reader-friendly way, and the editors of the journal may also have been liberal about informal features. To reveal to what extent authors took the advantage of this reader-friendly stylistic opportunity, I scanned the articles for informal features. For this part of the investigation I focussed on 8 selected articles in Number 4 of the Volume 5 (1998). My findings may not allow for complete generalisation on the article section as a whole, but can serve as a basis for further analysis of this type. I narrowed down the focus of analysis to the five most frequent linguistic tools in academic texts outlined by Chang and Swales (1999): first person pronouns (I, we), unsupported this, imperatives, forbidden first words (initial and, but, so, or, however) and direct questions.

As can be seen in Table 4 (overleaf), the most common informal element applied by most of the authors was the first person pronoun "I" and "we". This overlaps with Chang and Swales' observations (1999), who suggest that the usage of first person markers is increasing in academic fields. On the basis of Table 4 we can also see that native English writers: Alderson (Testing and Teaching: The Dream and the Reality) and Bradley (Dissecting a Workshop), who are senior members of the discourse community tended to involve more individuality in their style. 

The impact of direct questions is felt strong, and writers can easily focus the attention of the reader by employing them (Chang & Swales, 1999). In contrast, indirect questions are felt to be boring and conservative. Although the total occurrence of direct questions in the sample takes the second place in the list of Table 4, looking at the articles one by one the results are mixed. Direct questions occurred outstandingly often in the texts of two of the native English speakers (e.g.: "Why did he help me cheat?"(Alderson, 1998, p. 24) while Hungarian authors either did not use this strategy at all or used it to a smaller extent. Rather than address the audience directly in the main text, they limited this stylistic opportunity to titles, subtitles and research questions (Table 4 does not include research questions listed in the articles). 

*Multiple authorships
**Including main-text second person imperatives 
***Explicitly address the reader and include title and subtitles

Considering the results on the use of forbidden first words - initial `and', `but', `so', `or', `however', I found that only native English speakers began sentences with the conjunctions `And' `Or' and `So', indeed combining them with other informal elements as the following example shows: "But will it?" (Alderson, 1998, p. 26). In contrast, non-native writers took a middle position using only the less risky "However" at the beginning of a sentence. 

Unsupported `This' was used by many authors, but altogether was not too common in the sample. As far as imperatives are concerned, there was merely one sentence in the section, which addressed the readers directly in the main text: "Never give a workshop after lunch on the last day of a conference!" (Bradley, 1998, p. 93). This result suggests that novELTy writers did not tend to employ this kind of informal stylistic opportunity. Instead, they guided the readers with less direct stylistic devices. Overall, in the examined section of novELTy the phenomenon of employing informal elements in academic writing was observable. Hungarian authors used this opportunity far less frequently than some native English writers. 

Survey of readers' attitudes

Readers' working context and interests 

Of the 50 respondents who completed the form, 41 were Hungarian. Nearly three-quarters of the participants were female (35). As far as affiliation was concerned, 21 said they worked in higher education, 12 were secondary-school teachers, whereas six worked as BC contractees. A small minority were primary-school teachers, and freelances (two in each category). There were no students among them. Seven respondents gave an affiliation not listed in the options: such as director of a language school, teacher trainer, publisher and language school teacher. The affiliation data show that the number of primary school teachers was low. 

Almost three-quarters of the respondents (37) claimed to have read the journal for at least four years thus one may assume that most had enough experience of the journal and they may have developed their own views on it, too. 

As for ELT interest, the participants were asked to indicate the three most important fields listed in the questionnaire or to add other subjects or fields not included in it. The results can be seen in Table 5 in order of frequency, that is, in order of how many times each item was mentioned. 

As can be seen in Table 5, methodology, teacher training, history and culture of English speaking countries, linguistics, and testing were the five fields that they were interested in most. Other fields and disciplines listed included edutainment, sociolinguistics, linguistic imperialism, classroom research, English for specific purposes, quality assurance in language education, corpus linguistics, primary ELT and CALL - mostly new fields in language and language education. Surprisingly, no one said they were interested in media studies. Comparing the data about ELT interests with that obtained on the themes of the articles (see Table 2), it can be seen that they overlap. The theme frequency data also showed that teacher training, methodology and testing among the ELT fields were most frequently in the focus of the authors. This suggests that editors were probably aware of what novELTy readers are interested in, or among the respondents there were previous novELTy contributors, and they produced texts according to their own scholarly interests. 

Readers' attitude to novELTy

In line with the items of the questionnaire, first I aimed to find out which sections the readers liked to read most and least (see Appendix B, Items 1 and 2). Considering great diversity in reading styles, I polarized the questions asking about only those sections that the respondents always and never read. Table 6 shows the results according to frequency, that is, how many votes each section got from the 50 readers. 

The Article section was most widely read: by 46 readers. There was no considerable difference among the other sections and in decreasing order Events (34), Editorial (31), IATEFL-H Info (28), Reviews (26), British Council Info (24) and the Bulletin Board (23) were always read. When asked, "Which sections do you never read?" 40 participants said that there was no such a part, five never read the British Council Info, three the Reviews, and two the Editorials. 

Then the respondents were asked for their opinion concerning the credibility, usefulness and style of the articles. As for credibility, I asked how often they questioned the results of the articles. The responses were given on a 5 point scale: never, hardly ever, sometimes, often or always. More than one quarter (14) hardly ever questioned the results, whereas just over half (27) said that they sometimes found the articles unreliable. Few readers chose the other options: "never" was selected by one, "often" by two and "always" by one. 3 respondents did not answer this question, and 2 participants commented, "I am more sceptical at the research methodology" and "I never question the reliability and the authenticity of the results presented, however I cannot always agree with the conclusion drawn on their basis". 

When asked, "To what extent do you think the articles are useful to your work" using the same 5 point scale as before, 45 respondents said that they sometimes (20) or often (25) found issues useful to their work. Regarding that the majority of them worked in higher education and the published studies (see Table 3) were mostly associated with higher education, too, these results were predictable. 

As for style, 40% of the respondents (20) found it academic, controlled by the editors to fulfil the objectives for scholarly papers and to be understandable for the audience. Another 36% (18) considered it academic but understandable for both researchers and practicing teachers. In contrast to these views, 8 participants found that the style was narrative and easily understandable for a wide audience. Nobody said that the journal's style was researcherese or a kind that did not fulfil the objectives of academic writing. Three commented, "I find that too many of the articles aim at an academic audience", " I find there are good authors and not so good ones - editors cannot make wonders with everyone's style. Overall, mostly readable. Reflect the profession well" and "It's not easy to make generalisations as the articles cover a wide range of subjects, and register varies accordingly". 

Conclusion through a reader's reflections

Should practicing teachers read applied linguistic journals? Through an analysis of novELTy and a survey of readers' attitude, I aimed at supplying reliable and valid answers to this query. According to the results, I should answer yes. NovELTy can fulfil readers' expectations for an academic ELT publication: researchers and practicing teachers, too may find texts presented in a style which is understandable for a wide audience, texts that are useful to their work and texts that may raise their interest. 

For myself, what made me committed to the journal was the Articles section. Including empirical and theoretical studies, it directed my attention to current ELT issues and also served my professional development. The results of studies published there oriented me in my everyday work helping me to overcome ELT problems. I also liked the articles' language, as it did not require too much specialist expertise. This does not mean, however, that the articles were simplistic. Most of the authors, experts of a field in a discipline, intended to write clearly and simply, showing their academic authority as well. The style changed according to authors, which encouraged me to read critically. I preferred articles that involved a more personal style to the ones that tended to be academically conventional and technical. I enjoyed the former more as their authors, stimulating my thoughts, invited me, the reader, to participate in exploring ideas. 

Despite the positive results that novELTy, an applied linguistic journal, promises a profitable way for teachers to improve professionally, there remain many questions for researchers to answer. Among the most important: Do teachers working at primary and secondary education read academic journals in Hungary, and if not, why not?

Notes

I would like to thank my consultant, Dr. Horváth József (University of Pécs) for raising my interest in scholarly writing, for his patience and for the discussions by which he has guided me in writing the thesis that served as a base to this article. I also thank novELTy readers for their assistance in providing data for a reader attitude survey. 

References

Alderson, C. J. (1998). Testing and teaching: The dream and the reality. novELTy, 5 (4), 23-38.
Allan, D. (1997). The secret of in-service training. novELTy, 4 (1), 55-66.
Bhatia, V. K. (1999). Integrating products, processes, purposes and participants in professional writing. In C. N. Candlin, & K. Hyland (Eds.), Writing: Texts, processes and practices (pp. 21-38).London and New York: Longman.
Bodóczky, C. (1997). The myth of non-judgmental feedback. novELTy, 4 (4), 35-40.
Bradley, T. (1998). Dissecting a workshop. novELTy, 5 (4), 86-95.
Chang, Y-Y., & Swales, J. M. (1999). Informal elements in English academic writing: Threats or opportunities for advanced non-native speakers? In C. N. Candlin, & K. Hyland (Eds.), Writing: Texts, processes and practices. (pp. 145-167). London and New York: Longman.
Clyne, M. (1991). The sociocultural dimensions: The dilemma of the German-speaking scholar. In H. Schroder (Ed.), Subject-oriented texts (pp. 49-67). New York: Walter deGrueter.
Coleman, J. A. (1998). Motivation among university language students in the UK and in the continental Europe. novELTy, 5 (1), 28-35.
Csécsiné Máriás, E. (Ed.). (1999). Statisztikai tájékoztató: Felsõoktatás. Budapest: Oktatási Minisztérium. 
Dalrymple, M. (1997). Introducing the matura in Slovenia: Testing the National Curriculum. novELTy, 4 (2), 29-38.
Dörnyei, Z. (1997). What can researchers offer to teachers? The case of motivation. novELTy, 4 (4), 6-20.
Elekes, K., Magnuczné Godó, Á., Szabó, P., & Tóth, I. (1998). A view of teaching careers in Hungary in the late 1990s. novELTy, 5 (4), 6-23.
Fekete, H., Major, É, & Nikolov, M. (Eds.). (1999). English language education in Hungary: A baseline study. Budapest: The British Council Hungary.
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Grabe, W. & Kaplan, B. R. (1996). Theory and practice of writing: An applied linguistics perspective. London: Longman.
Grundy, P. & Li, V. (1998). Responding to writing: Credible alternatives to the "you write: I correct" syndrome. novELTy, 5 (3), 7-14.
Grundy, P. (2001). When out of sight is not out of mind - theoretical research, applied research and professional writing in English Language Teaching. novELTy, 8 (1), 22-37.
Hyland, K. (1999). Disciplinary discourses: writer stance in research articles. In C. N. Candlin, & K. Hyland (Eds.), Writing: Texts, processes and practices. (pp. 122-143). London and New York:Longman.
Katona, L. (1998). Criteria for the design and evaluation of communicative language tests. novELTy, 5 (4), 47-54.
Kiss, T. (1998). I came, I saw and I reflected: The role of reflection in pre-service teacher education. novELTy, 5 (1), 52-58.
Kiszely, Z. (1998). Audience and purpose in textbook writing tasks. novELTy, 5 (4), 71-82.
Kontra, M. (1997). Angol nyelvi és kulturális imperializmus és magyar tanárképzés [English language and cultural imperialism and Hungarian teacher education]. Modern Nyelvoktatás 3 (3), 3-14.
Kormos, J. (1998). How much do students talk? Factors affecting the quantity of speech in oral argumentative tasks. novELTy, 5 (4), 54-71.
Krashen, S. (1998). TPR: Still a very good idea. novELTy, 5 (4). 82-86.
Ligeti, Cs. (Ed.). (1999). Magyar statisztikai évkönyv. 1999. Budapest: KSH.
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Medgyes, P. (1994). The non-native teacher. London: Macmillan.
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Nikolov, M. & Horváth, J. (1996a). If teaching English is your profession, odds are you have heard about novELTy. novELTy, 3 (3), 142. 
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Ottó, I. (1998). Item analysis and validity in progress testing. novELTy, 5 (4), 38-47.
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Appendix 

Questionnaire on novELTy

Dear novELTy Reader, 

This questionnaire is aimed at probing into how novELTy meets the needs and interests of its reading audience. Would you please take a few minutes to fill it in? Your response is essential, as without it, I will not have the data for my research on the journal, which I currently conduct at the English Department, the University of Pécs. Since I intend to treat your answers confidentially in my thesis, please do not include your name. 

I enclose an addressed and stamped envelope along the questionnaire, in which you can return it easily.

Thank you for your contribution.

Gaál Judit

7100 Szekszárd, Esze Tamás u. 26. Hungary

Tel: 36 74 511-721

e-mail: z.gaal@matavnet.hu