Alison leads the British Council’s global TeachingEnglish programme, which provides tech-enabled professional development opportunities, communities and networks for teachers and teacher educators of English worldwide. She has over 30 years of ELT and education experience across four continents, including British Council regional English Programmes lead for the Americas and Sub-Saharan Africa. Email: Alison.Devine@britishcouncil.org

 

Introduction

In the April 2024 Eco Issues section of Humanising Language Teaching, Alan Maley’s article ‘Global Ecological Collapse and the Power of Teachers’ put out “a call for teachers to exercise the considerable power they have to contribute to ongoing attempts to halt the now serious and very real damage to the global ecosystems.” Maley stated, “In order to implement action, we need access to the pedagogical materials which are available, and to produce new ones.”

The British Council’s TeachingEnglish offers a range of free-of-charge practical resources around integrating environmental issues into English language teaching. These include an open learning professional development course for teachers, a podcast series, lesson plans, videos accompanied by teaching and student resources, a publication with a bank of 30 activities, a climate in the ELT classroom mini-event, and teacher tips from Egypt. Other British Council resources include a climate change and girls' education school resource pack, and further climate resources designed to help school teachers explore and support positive climate action in their schools. These resources are described below.

 

TeachingEnglish Resources

Climate action in language education open learning course for teachers

The ‘Climate action in language education’ professional development open learning course is designed to train teachers how to integrate environmental issues into English language teaching, equip learners with the language skills to understand, discuss and engage critically with climate change issues, and take and sustain meaningful and impactful action to protect the environment in their local context.

Requiring a minimum CEFR B1 level of English, this 9-hour self-study training course consists of three 3-hour modules:

1. Introducing environmental issues

2. Lessons with a sustainability focus

3. Making sustainability part of your learners’ lives.

It includes a dedicated Facebook community of course participants, with up-to-date insight, resources and innovative ideas to try out; engaging discussions; live events with the course tutor and language teaching experts; and a workbook with additional learning content and resources.

The next course will run from 9 October 2024. Enrolment is now open.

 

The Climate Connection podcast series

The Climate Connection 10-part podcast series explores the relationship between the climate crisis and language education. The 10 episodes feature a wide range of leading practitioners working in the sector – teachers, trainers, researchers, publishers and authors. The series travels across the world to share what’s happening in climate action in language education. In partnership with the Oxford English Dictionary, it also covers the origins of climate-related language, in both English and other languages. The podcast series is alternatively available on YouTube.

Each episode contains downloadable show notes which include information about the interviewees and the ‘From the field’ section of the podcast; the ‘Green glossary’, kindly provided by Oxford University Press, with links to definitions of key vocabulary in the Oxford English Dictionary; ideas for how teachers could use the podcast in their teaching; and bonus material. The transcripts are also downloadable.

In addition to the Climate Connection podcast series, there is a TeachingEnglish podcast episode on integrating the Sustainable Development Goals into English language teaching.

 

Climate action in language education lesson plans

This series of 12 lesson plans provides teachers with step-by-step guidance and resources. They are an ideal starting point to help address issues of sustainability in the classroom. The lessons cover a range of levels and age groups (primary, secondary and adult learners), and each explores a different topic, from sports to storms and from families to fashion. They are designed with flexibility in mind, can be integrated within existing curricula, and are available in two versions, for classroom-based lessons and online teaching. 4 lesson plans are linked to videos (see the ‘Climate action ELT videos’ section below).

These lesson plans were written by the founding members of ELT Footprint, a global community of more than 4,000 teachers, trainers, writers and publishers dedicated to reducing the environmental impact of their place of work, the ELT profession.

 

Climate action ELT videos

The climate action series of 4 ELT videos (Power to change, Making our school green, Winners and Ukraine school project) is a teaching resource that emerged from the British Council’s call at COP26 for schools around the world to showcase their work on sustainability and climate change via a competition.

These videos demonstrate young people’s resourcefulness and commitment in the face of urgent problems and inspire other young learners to do the same. The videos also display the abilities of a wide range of English language learners across the world.

Each video is between 4 and 5 minutes long and comes with a full set of teaching and student resources for a 45-minute ELT lesson themed on taking action on environmental issues. The English is graded at CEFR level B1.

The 10 winning videos from the competition can be found on YouTube in the TeachingEnglish Climate and environmental playlist. Competition partners were the IATEFL Global Issues Special Interest Group and Digital Learning Associates.

 

Climate action in language education publication: Activities for low resource contexts

The publication Climate action in language education: Activities for low resource contexts provides teachers with a bank of 30 activities, based on 10 climate change themes, with step-by-step guidance for each activity. They are an ideal starting point to help to address issues of sustainability in the classroom. The activities cover a range of levels and age groups, and each explores climate change through one of 10 topics. They are designed with flexibility in mind, can be integrated within existing curricula and are all designed for contexts without access to audio equipment, printing or photocopying facilities. This publication also aims to help and encourage teachers who want to create their own materials and to integrate positive environmental action into every class.

 

Climate in the ELT classroom mini-event and teacher tips

The video recordings and handouts from a ‘Climate in the ELT classroom’ mini-event – designed to inspire teachers of primary, secondary and young adult English language learners to embed climate education and action into their classes – are available on the Climate in the ELT classroom mini-event page. The live event took place on 27 and 28 November 2023 and included two interactive webinars with experienced teacher trainers Cristiana Osan and Teo Naiba. It also featured two panel discussions with expert teachers in Egypt showcasing their award-winning work to integrate climate issues into the Egyptian national curriculum.

Teachers from the British Council’s ‘Teach, Engage, Aspire’ project in Egypt also shared their top teaching tips to remind us of the impact we can have in our classes. These videos are available in the TeachingEnglish Climate and environmental playlist on YouTube.

 

Other British Council climate resources for school teachers

The Climate change and girls’ education resource pack contains short units with accompanying activities for teachers to use with students aged between 11 and 17. It focuses on improving students’ understanding of the impact of climate change, how it affects their lives and community, and introduces students to gender inequality and the disproportionate impacts of climate change on girls and women as well as how these areas are connected. The resource also addresses the role of education in mitigating the effects of climate change on vulnerable groups such as girls and women in development contexts.

It contains a comprehensive teacher’s pack, slide deck and guidance across six sessions, culminating in a role play activity to bring together the issues learnt. The activities could be adapted for use with different learners, classrooms, or school contexts. The pack is also translated into the following languages: Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malaysia, Cambodian, Thai and Vietnamese.

Further climate resources designed to help school teachers explore and support positive climate action in their schools can be found on this Climate Connection page.

 

References

Maley, Alan. 2024. Global Ecological Collapse and the Power of Teachers. Humanising Language Teaching. April 2024 - Year 26 - Issue 2.

 

Please check the Pilgrims f2f courses at Pilgrims website.

Please check the Pilgrims online courses at Pilgrims website.