Green Standard Schools for Teachers

How many people are studying languages worldwide? It is of course impossible to know with any degree of certainty, but we can be certain of one thing: the total number must be huge. According to the British Council, there are around 1.5 billion learners of English worldwide. Add Spanish, French, German, Italian, Chinese, Arabic, and all the other languages that are studied as a second or third language, and the global total of language learners could easily exceed 2 billion, which is more than 25% of the entire human race. Even if we limit the count to adult language learners in Europe, the total will certainly be in the millions. This provides language teaching organisations with the opportunity to discuss environmental issues with an enormous number of learners. 

Of course the primary objective of language learners is to improve their language skills, rather than study issues relating to environmental sustainability. But our contention - and the basis of the Green Standard Schools project - is that we can achieve both outcomes at the same time. In other words, we believe that we can ensure that our learners achieve their goals in their target language while, at the same time, we can increase their awareness of some of the many environmental problems we’re facing, and we can also discuss what we, as responsible global citizens, can do to help mitigate some of these problems.

Needless to say, we’re not proposing that every lesson of every language course should focus on environmental issues. We are simply suggesting that we should discuss these issues with our students more frequently and more systematically than we do at present. 

So what is happening in most language schools at present?