ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING
Environmental Sustainability and ELT in 2022: Which Way Now?
A summary of the Belfast closing plenary
“Ecoliteracy” and “greenwashing” are two terms among a few others that the panelists introduced at the closing plenary of the IATEFL conference in Belfast this year. How can educators weave these ideas into their teaching practice without compromising learning goals? What are the implications for materials developers and publishers of adopting a sustainability approach to language teaching? These and other issues were addressed by Ceri Jones, Geoffrey Maroko and Owain Llewellyn at the hour-long plenary session.
Involved in research efforts to overhaul the Kenyan national curriculum, Maroko believes that integrating indigenous knowledge of an area’s natural habitat with language teaching is fundamental to reversing the decline of traditional food supplies. By introducing a competency-based curriculum that taps into indigenous practices of local communities across the country, Kenyan youth will become more sensitive to the “nonhuman world” and its conservation.
Similar sentiments were echoed by Llewellyn who has been advocating for the rights of the “nonhuman world” since 2012. His example of a walnut tree themed language lesson highlighted the social and environmental implications of rural to urban migration in Algeria and Bulgaria where he taught.
Cofounder of ELT Footprint, Jones reiterated the need for “place-based ecopedagogy”. While appreciating awareness building and conservation efforts in different parts of the world, she reminded the audience that these “pockets of change” are a far cry from the “climate action” needed to curb environmental degradation.
All three panelists agreed that while the local context is a great starting point, an acute awareness of the global scale of “climate emergency” is imperative. Environmental sustainability is a collective responsibility. Educators, administrators, institutions, materials creators, publishers and governments all have a role to play in developing the systems, frameworks and training programmes for integrating “ecoliteracy’’ with language teaching. Cambridge University Press, for instance, is already developing a sustainability framework of linguistic and communicative competencies that language teachers can adapt to their local context. Jones has partnered with Katherine Billsborough to develop can-do statements that are action-based, project-based and context-based for teachers to use in the classroom.
Llewellyn argues that language teachers are in a better position than scientists and activists to foster empathy for the “nonhuman world” by facilitating a classroom community around environmental issues and incorporating these issues into their language lessons. As Jones rightly said, taking action is scary but taking action together is the way forward.
