ELT and climate change, where next?, Christopher Graham

ELT consultant and co-founder of ELT footprint Christopher Graham presented on 'ELT and climate change, where next?' at the 6th annual Future of English Language Teaching Conference (FOELT) in June 2021.

Abstract

Awareness is growing of some of the negative impacts of ELT on the climate, and of the opportunities the community has to tackle climate change through its classrooms. This talk will explore some of the next steps around climate change that the ELT community can consider taking, as it emerges from the Covid pandemic.

The talk will reference the British Council’s ‘Climate Action in Language Education’ project that the speaker was involved in, explaining a little about the structure of the project and its findings and outcomes. The session will focus on approaches that might be taken by a range of different ELT stakeholders as well as highlighting some of the types of initiatives that have already been put into place. It is hoped that the sharing of ideas and best practices will encourage members of the global ELT community to revaluate and develop both their operations and delivery, and the content of what they teach or publish, in the context of the climate crisis.