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Embed sustainability in the curriculum: transform the world

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Published/Copyright: December 6, 2022

Abstract

This paper is an activity report that draws on the experience of embedding sustainability into the mainstream curriculum in the Language Centre, School of Languages, Cultures and Societies at the University of Leeds, UK. It describes and reflects on programmes that delivered the concept of sustainability and how learners developed their academic and sustainability literacies. The programmes in question are Language for Engineering and Language in Context Sustainability module. These programmes are developed and delivered in the context of English for Academic Purposes to pre-sessional postgraduate and undergraduate international students. The former programme prepares students for their postgraduate studies in the receiving schools, such as Engineering, Computer Science and Transport. The latter is an elective programme for a cross-discipline student cohort primarily to develop language specific to the concept of sustainability. Both programmes focus on expanding subject specific lexis and developing criticality skills. Positive student engagement and response – student feedback – is an effective indicator that there is a demand for programmes in the mainstream curriculum that promote sustainability literacies. It is time for sustainability to move from the margins and occupy its place at the forefront in language learning.


Corresponding author: Kashmir Kaur, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK, E-mail:

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Received: 2022-03-14
Accepted: 2022-07-12
Published Online: 2022-12-06
Published in Print: 2022-10-26

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Introduction
  3. Research on sustainable development literacy and affective learning and teaching actions
  4. Articles
  5. The implementation of plurilingual language policies in Higher Education – the perspective of language learning students
  6. The relationship between language learning strategies, affective factors and language proficiency
  7. Exploring the relationship between foreign language anxiety and students’ online engagement at UK universities during the Covid-19 pandemic
  8. University student perceptions of English language study changes: reactions to remote emergency teaching during the COVID-19 emergency
  9. Clausal complexity of expert and student writing: a corpus-based analysis of papers in social sciences
  10. Descriptive and inferential statistical analysis of expectations and needs of engineering students and graduates: a case study at the University of West Bohemia
  11. The native speaker teacher. Theoretical considerations and practical implications
  12. Special Section: Sustainable development literacy in Language Learning and Teaching; Guest Editors: Odette Gabaudan and Pilar Molina
  13. Bibliographical review on sustainable literacy in language learning and teaching
  14. On a journey towards Education for Sustainable Development in the foreign language curriculum
  15. Ethics, Dialogue and English as a Lingua Franca for ESD in Higher Education
  16. Data-driven and research-based learning approaches to environmental education in university contexts: two case studies in Italy and Germany
  17. Cultural literacy and sustainable development through English: a look from CLIL in pharmacy
  18. Reports
  19. Embed sustainability in the curriculum: transform the world
  20. Raising concepts and awareness of sustainability and the environment in higher education through French foreign language teaching: a multidisciplinary didactic proposal
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