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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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Published/Copyright: December 6, 2022

Abstract

Our society is affected by the climate crisis, which is largely a consequence of human activity. For this reason, the education and awareness of society plays a fundamental role. Spain and Andalusia are committed to the 17 sustainable development goals established by the United Nations and their fulfilment by 2030, representing an important part of the Challenges of Andalusian Society (CAS). One of the goals to be achieved is to “improve education, awareness and human and institutional capacity for climate change mitigation, adaptation and early warning”. Education and environmental awareness in relation to CAS remain one of the main challenges, especially in foreign language teaching and learning. By means of an innovative educational strategy, this project aims to address four CAS in university language learning/teaching of French as a foreign language (FFL): 1. Climate action, environment, resource and raw material efficiency, 2. Smart, green and integrated transport, 3. Safe, clean and efficient energy, and 4. Health, demographic change and social well-being. The aim is to train and raise awareness of key concepts among undergraduate students through the integration of the CAS as didactic units in FFL subjects of the Bachelor’s Degree in French Studies at the University of Granada (Spain). This project may well have a positive impact on the environmental attitude, interest and motivation of students towards the CAS and the acquisition of linguistic competences in the French language.


Corresponding author: Ariane Ruyffelaert, University of Granada, Granada, Spain, E-mail:

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Received: 2022-05-09
Accepted: 2022-06-17
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
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  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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