The world has changed rapidly during the last decades, prompting language teachers to provide their students with multiple skills needed in the future (Kramsch 2014; Kubanyiova & Feryok 2015). The integration of sustainability education in language classes has become mandatory in many UN member countries through curricular changes, and this raises a need for research on how language students understand sustainability and its relevance in language education. Language students may find it challenging to find a connection between sustainability education and language learning and teaching, especially due to its interdisciplinary character (Abbonizio & Ho 2020). Prior research has shown that language students generally have a positive attitude toward sustainability, but they often lack professional training and skills to implement sustainability education in their future teacher profession (Sinakou, Boeve-de Pauw, Goossens & van Petegem 2018).
Language students' views provide valuable information for assessing the needs for developing language teacher education to meet the new requirements of sustainability education. This study analyses language students' understanding of the significance of sustainability dimensions and their sub-themes through a questionnaire conducted to 55 students at a Finnish University. The dimensions were introduced at the beginning of the questionnaire and under each dimension and the students had to decide on the priority order of sub-themes that varied from local to global in their scope. We investigated the order of priority the students organised the sub-themes into and the justifications they gave for these decisions. We also studied whether their justification differed between the four sustainability dimensions.
Our preliminary results show that there are clear differences between students in how they understand and prioritise different sustainability dimensions and their sub-themes. This should be taken into consideration when training teachers in sustainability education to provide language teachers with adequate skills to integrate it in their classes. Based on our results, it might be beneficial to incorporate a more holistic approach to sustainability in language education, which enables a better understanding of the interconnectedness of different sustainability dimensions and their sub-themes.
Abbonizio, J. K., & Ho, S. S. (2020). Students' perceptions of interdisciplinary coursework: An Australian case study of the master of environment and sustainability. Sustainability, 12(21), 8898.
Kramsch, C. (2014). Teaching foreign languages in an era of globalization: Introduction. The modern language journal, 98(1), 296-311.
Kubanyiova, M., & Feryok, A. (2015). Language teacher cognition in applied linguistics research: Revisiting the territory, redrawing the boundaries, reclaiming the relevance. The Modern Language Journal, 99(3), 435-449.
Sinakou, E., Boeve-de Pauw, J., Goossens, M., & Van Petegem, P. (2018). Academics in the field of Education for Sustainable Development: Their conceptions of sustainable development. Journal of cleaner production, 184, 321-332. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.02.279
