1.3.1 English language education
Harry Kuchah Kuchah, a lecturer in language education at the University of Leeds in the UK, was interviewed about his work for a podcast by the British Council. He discussed the responsibility that the English Language Teaching sector as a whole has towards the climate crisis:
I think we have a very huge responsibility because English language education is kind of the melting pot for what every other subject area does. Language is that tool that we use to communicate all the values that are dear to human beings and that are fundamental to our survival on the planet. The way we communicate, the way we engage with people can make or mar the planet because they can shift people’s attitudes and beliefs and actions consequently.
Some language educators have the flexibility to design and deliver their courses using a content-based language learning approach (British Council, 2023) – not teaching English grammar and vocabulary in isolation, but through a specific subject matter. In this context, climate change and environment can serve as a subject matter, through which a student can also learn English.
Over the last 10 years there has been a rapid increase in the production of climate fiction, including novels, short stories and poetry. Sarah Outterson-Murphy (2023) provides extensive examples of the climate change fiction that she uses to engage students [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] in her own context as an English language teacher.
While some research suggests that climate fiction is limited in terms of the readership it reaches (Schneider-Mayerson, 2018) and casts doubt on whether the changes in readers’ beliefs and attitudes about climate change have lasting impact (Schneider-Mayerson et al., 2023), these studies are limited to the North American context with participants who are paid to take part. Educators in other parts of the world offer a more nuanced picture. For example, the inclusion of the Indigenous climate fiction text Carpentaria by Alexia Wright as an optional set text in the Australian English secondary curriculum offers new possibilities for engaging with literature, while also disrupting the way in which English has so often been a tool for colonisation and injustice (Phillips et al., 2022).