Topic outline
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Dear teachers,
Welcome to our course 'GSS for teachers' centered around our impactful project 'Green Standard Schools'. This engaging initiative aims to:
- Integrate crucial environmental topics into the language learning curriculum of three languages (English, Spanish, and French)
- Enhance the language competence of foreign language learners
- Boost the teaching competences of language teachers
- Foster responsible and sustainable environmental behavior in both language learners and teachers
- Inspire language schools to develop comprehensive environmental policies
This course features a comprehensive Environmental Handbook for Language School Managers and Teachers, designed as training material to empower language teachers and managers with tools to minimize environmental impact in their operations and enhance their proficiency as language course providers.
Also, you can explore our Video Collection, accessible on our YouTube channel Green Standard Schools, where you'll discover a series of short videos featuring discussions on environmental issues. This curated collection serves as a readily available database of teaching materials, seamlessly integrable into your lessons.
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In this chapter, we'll discuss revising teaching materials to incorporate environmental issues into language learning. With over 2 billion language learners worldwide, this project aims to promote environmental awareness alongside language skill development, fostering responsible global citizenship. While not every lesson will focus on the environment, the goal is to systematically and frequently engage students in such discussions. Now, let's examine the current situation in most language schools.
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In this lesson, we'll discuss the continued use of printed textbooks in language teaching, despite environmental concerns and limited interactivity. Traditional course books persist due to profitability and learner preference for tangible materials. Despite the availability of web-based materials and language-learning apps, printed textbooks continue to dominate language education. We'll explore how these textbooks address environmental sustainability.
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In this lesson, we explore how many modern course books include at least one chapter addressing environmental issues, such as pollution, conservation, and climate change. While these units serve to raise awareness of environmental problems, they usually represent only a small fraction of the course, often 10-12%. This limited coverage sidelines the crucial topic of environmental sustainability. Furthermore, environmental themes are rarely introduced in course books until students have reached an intermediate level (B1), missing the opportunity to engage learners at all proficiency levels. We propose integrating environmental issues into language courses at all levels, emphasizing the need for more significant attention to this critical subject.
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In this lesson, we discuss the importance of expanding existing teaching materials to incorporate environmental issues. Teachers often lack the time to create new study materials, so our Green Standard Schools project offers digital resources and lesson plans. However, given the multitude of environmental problems worldwide, teachers may want to address specific local issues or gaps in the provided materials. To illustrate this, we provide three examples of how teachers can expand content from existing course books to include environmental topics, promoting discussions on sustainability, pollution, conservation, and more. These expanded materials can be shared, adapted, and customized for various CEFR proficiency levels.
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