The world is currently facing significant environmental challenges, and as global citizens, it is our collective responsibility to address these issues by fostering environmental awareness and promoting sustainable practices.
In this context a foreign language classroom can’t be just a place to learn a language, but a space where the learners could learn about environmental issues and contribute to environmental sustainability.
The elaboration of the toolkit “Green Skills in Foreign Language Education” and the organization of the workshop at Northern University, Armenia, on April, 12-13, 2023, were aimed at addressing the urgent need for training foreign language teachers how to integrate environmental awareness and sustainable development principles into foreign language syllabi.
There were several challenges we tried to solve with the help of the initiative:
- Raising the environmental awareness of the language teachers and then of their students;
- Developing relevant teaching materials;
- Promoting an interdisciplinary approach to education;
- Building a network of environmentally conscious language teachers and educators.
The workshop was innovative as it offered a unique interdisciplinary approach to teaching a foreign language in Armenia. The toolkit, "Green Skills in Foreign Language Education” () helped to independently choose and conduct a green lesson in a foreign language. The methodology of the toolkit is also innovative, and it embraces interactive and collaborative learning, use of digital tools and resources as well as planning of actions of the integration of green skills in the language classroom.
Lusine Fljyan, the author of the training initiative, tried to shape the role of a teacher in a new context of connecting green and language skills, who should be a a content developer, a facilitator, a resource compiler, assessor, and also a disseminator of new ideas on the merge of ecology and foreign languages into a new content which we can name lecodidactics (language and ecology combined teaching and learning, the term is proposed by Lusine Fljyan)
The shift from a traditional to a new role will make the learning environment more dynamic, relevant and engaging. Teachers will be able to create authentic learning experiences by incorporating real-world examples.
The workshop provided a comprehensive introduction to the "Green Skills in Foreign Language Education" toolkit. Participants gained a thorough understanding of the importance of integrating green skills into foreign language education, as well as the necessary tools and techniques to do so effectively. The workshop:
1. Enhanced participants' awareness of global environmental challenges and their role in addressing them through foreign language education.
2. Enabled educators and student teachers to learn how to design and implement lesson plans.
3. Encouraged collaboration and networking among participants, fostering a supportive community of environmentally conscious educators.
4. Equipped participants with the skills to evaluate the effectiveness of the practice in their educational settings and continuously improve their teaching methods.
We can state that the innovative practice of integrating green skills into foreign language education in Armenia has the potential to not only improve language learning but also contribute to the development of environmentally conscious citizens.
Innovator: Lusine Fljyan, Northern University of Armenia