CC BY
43
HOW TO TEACH ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION DURING EFL/ESL LESSONS?
S. Stavreva Veselinovska S. Kirova
Introduction. The purpose of incorporating environmental education into teaching English as a second/foreign language is to raise the environmental awareness of global environmental problems. Teacher education plays a special role in converting teachers’ education towards sustainability because they play a vital role in the global education community. They have the potential to bring about change in the education system that will reshape the knowledge and skills of future generations.
Rivers (1976) stated that"As language teachers we are the most fortunate of teachers...all subjects are ours. Whatever (our learners) want to communicate about, whatever they want to read about, is our subject matter". As all other professionals, English language teachers and contribute one way or another to stop the degradation of the environment and they need to use their profession not only to develop students' communication skills, but also to give knowledge and attitudes that will affect the world's problems in general, and, in particular, the protection of the environment. Thus teaching English as a foreign or second language should not be limited only to improving language proficiency, but also to training students for critical thinking strategies that can be helpful for sustainability; this in turn means that the teaching profession can be used for promoting environmentally friendly behavior of citizens and activate the eco-applied linguistic awareness among teachers of English as a foreign or second language.
Never has the whole world been so concerned about global issues generally and environmental education and protection in particular. “Thinking green” and “acting green” preoccupies many individuals, governmental and non-governmental institutions worldwide today. But, this environmental education does not seem to be the preoccupation of the Macedonian EFL/ESL teachers. Is it ignorance or negligence or both and more? Meanwhile, according to Tang (2009), the Earth Summit of 1992 had provided agenda 21 to render environmental education necessary for every citizen in the world and the former head of the United Nations Environment Program, Ghafoor-Ghaznawi had stated that environmental education was considered cross-curricular because the environment includes all areas of studies. This implies that EFL/ESL teachers worldwide could use their profession in building up a sustainable environment for mankind’s future generations. According to, UNESCO (2005), institutions of teacher education have a special role in reorienting teacher education to address sustainability, and since institutions of teacher education fulfill vital roles in the global education community, they have the potential to bring about changes within educational systems that will shape the knowledge and skills of future generations. Humankind didnot face environmental problems when they first emerged on earth; however, with the increase of world
253
population human based environmental problems also began to appear. Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi emphasized the fact that we should not destroy environmental sources and environment to meet our ambitions by saying “the earth has enough for everyone’s need but not for anyone’s greed” (Sarabhai and Chhokar, 2009).
The most important thing in creating environmental awareness is to give environmental education to individuals (Strife, 2010). In other words, societies having environmental information and awareness will provide positive and sensitive behavioral changes, protection of natural environment and regaining the damaged environment thanks to education (Uzun and Saglam, 2005). The responsibility of this duty belongs to environmental educators whose main aim is to raise individuals who are environmentally literate and sensitive towards the environment (Knapp, 2000).
Depending on this fact, it is possible to say that people’s acquiring proper behaviors regarding environment and their being educated about this matter is of crucial importance (Kizilaslan and Kizilaslan, 2005). Another purpose of environmental educational is to create environmental literacy. It can be inferred from the conducted studies that environmental literacy is important (Mancl et al., 1999; Loubser et al., 2001; Erdogan et al., 2009).
Moseley and Utley (2008) applied a semi-experimental method to 115 students in pre-test and to 102 students in post-test in their article named as “An exploratory study of prospective teachers’ beliefs about the environment”. They stated that the purpose of their study is to evaluate the expectations of primary school prospective teachers and the effectiveness of environmental education.
Teachers and prospective teachers are under the great responsibility of creating and developing this awareness among students in this process. It is thought that prospective teachers’ graduating as environmentally literate from educational faculties and creation of environmental awareness will enable next generations to grow up in an environment which would not have lost its naturalness much.
Why should we teach environmental education with English language? According to Babcook(1993), successful learning of a language comprises both successful combinations of the acquired both micro and macro skills in respective communication phrases, and environmental topics are a rich source of communication material. Rethinking and expanding the goals of teaching English as a second or foreign language is another reason for the inclusion of environmental education in this teaching. Cates (1997) points out that: We can’t call our English teaching successful if our students, however fluent, are ignorant of world problems, have no social conscience by using their communication skills for international crime, exploitation, oppression or environmental destruction. According to Cates this explains the growing interest over the past decade to incorporate environmental education in teaching English. Brown (1990) believes that teachers of English have a mission to help everyone in the world to communicate with each other in order to solve the global problem. Of course, this is due to the global status of English.
254
Teaching English in order to raise awareness about environmental sustainability. According to Tang (2009), the purpose of incorporating environmental education in teaching English as a foreign/second language is to raise student awareness of global environmental crises. Environmentally conscious activities may include the following (adapted from Jacobs and Cates (1999): planting trees and plants, reducing the usage of paper, plastic and energy, writing letters to various organizations, companies or governments, using recycled materials - glass bottles and jars for example, recycling and buying recycled materials (e.g. paper), raising funds for environmental actions, taking part in environmental activities, educating people to become ecologically aware, boycotting environmentally unacceptable products, etc.
Materials for teaching EFL/ESL and environmental education
Materials for this form of simultaneous teaching can be prepared by both teachers and students. For example, students can create and develop materials in one of the following ways: (a) They can bring articles or audio/video recordings from newspapers, magazines, radio and TV programs or the Internet;
(b) Recordings of songs in English with environmental topics performed by locally or worldwide famous artists engaged in protecting the environment can be used. Songs contents can be used as themes for debates; (c) Conversations on themes related to some local events (e.g. illegal cutting of trees, killing endangered animals, burning grass, etc.); (d) Develop surveys about environmental problems for peers whose results will later be analyzed in terms of whether they are environmentally acceptable or not. The inclusion of critical thinking skills in a classroom where English is taught as a foreign language can help in the further development of communicative skills and analytical thinking and it allows students to apply various communication situations when debating about global environmental issues (Yukiko Ishikawa et al., 2007).
Teaching about the environment in an English language class. The main aim of this paper is to implement teaching about the environment in English language classes and the issue of finding appropriate teaching and learning resources. Jacobs and Cates (1999) present a lot of questions often asked by teachers when they are faced with incorporating environment education into their EFL/ESL classes: “Should every lesson be about global issues?” “Can language be taught simultaneously with global issues?” “How can we acquire enough knowledge about global problems so that we can incorporate it into our teaching?” “How can we get materials for global education?” Jacobs and Cates (1999) attempt to answer these curious questions. As to the first question concerning the involvement of global issues in all English lessons, they argue that the infusion of global education in the teaching of English as a second language does not necessarily mean that every lesson and very reading paragraph or group discussion should be about some global issues. The recommendation is that environmental education be a full-time and permanent part of the curriculum, not just something that is just thrown in or accidentally done once or twice a year.
Conclusion. Environmental education, which is considered a "plan for the future," appeared in the 1970s, in response to the rapid deterioration in our
255
environment. Today it is part of world education because the damage that man has inflicted on nature is with planetary proportions and has become a pressing international problem. In the Macedonian education system in primary and secondary school students are introduced to environmental issues through a range of core subjects. Environmental education has not yet been introduced into the educational system of the Republic of Macedonia as a separate subject. Hence comes the idea to write this text about integrated teaching of contents area of nature conservation through learning English as a second/foreign language.
256
