Eco-critical language awareness for English language teaching (ELT): Promoting justice, wellbeing, and sustainability in the classroom

Abstract

Critical Language Awareness (CLA) seeks to promote social justice by explicitly calling attention to power issues in the context of literacy development and language instruction. In this article, we assert that a CLA approach to English language teaching (ELT) which does not recognize and account for the urgency of climate change and its myriad effects on present and future generations of learners is flawed. It is time ELT extends a critical lens to the role that our practices and pedagogies serve in the (re)production of attitudes, ideologies, identities, and actions which contribute to ecological degradation and climate crisis while also engaging how we may advance ecological wellbeing and sustainability. This article outlines the rationale for this ecolinguistics-informed CLA (eco-CLA) approach to English language instruction by asserting the compatibility of ecolinguistics and CLA and the intersection of social, linguistic, and environmental justice. It then presents and discusses five principles for an eco-CLA approach to ELT that can be applied to a range of language learning contexts. Finally, it demonstrates how these principles can be operationalized within ELT by presenting a series of instructional activities.

Keywords

• critical language awareness
• eco-critical language awareness
• ecolinguistics
• english language teaching
• sustainable pedagogy