Climate Action in Language Education

Watch a recording of the British Council's Climate in Language Education team's one-hour online event to celebrate World Earth Day.

About the event

In this special event held on World Earth Day 2022, the British Council will launch the publication of landmark new research publication ‘Climate action across the global English language teaching (ELT) sector’ as well as a range of new high tech and low-tech free resources for English teachers looking for innovative ways to integrate climate change issues into the classroom.

Recorded on 22 April 2022

Watch a recording of this event on YouTube
 

Event description

11:00am - 11:10am UK

Welcome and introductory session: Michael Connolly (Global lead, EES, British Council) and Colm Downes (Director English, Education and Society, British Council Indonesia) will introduce the special World Earth Day Event and give a brief introduction to the British Council's work in sustainability in English. 


11:10am - 11:30am UK

Climate action in language education: Activities for low resource contexts (launch):

In this official publication launch we will outline who the publication is for and do a live demonstration of one of the activities.

This publication provides teachers with a bank of thirty activities, based on ten climate change themes, with step-by-step guidance for each activity. They are an ideal starting point to help to address issues of sustainability in the classroom. The activities cover a range of levels and age groups, and each explores climate change through one of ten topics, from sports to storms and from farming to fashion.

They are designed with flexibility in mind, can be integrated within existing curricula and are all designed for contexts without access to audio equipment, printing or photocopying facilities. Most of the activities in this publication have been adapted from twelve lesson plans which can be found on the British Council’s Teaching English website.

In this official publication launch we will outline who the publication is for and do a live demonstration of one of the activities. 


11:30am - 11.45am UK

Climate Action – school video competition winners & new resources (launch):

In this official launch event Stephen Haggard, the co-founder and director of Digital Learning Associates (DLA), will introduce the new climate action video resources and discuss how they can be used in class. The Climate Connection series of ELT videos is a teaching resource that emerged from the British Council’s call at COP26 for schools around the world to showcase their work on sustainability and climate change.

Selected from the best more than 200 entries, these films demonstrate young people’s resourcefulness and commitment in the face of urgent problems. They also display the abilities of a wide range of English language learners on all continents. Each video is between 3 and 4 minutes and comes with a full set of teaching and student resources for a 45-minute ELT lesson themed on taking action on Environmental issues. The English is graded at CEFR level B1


11:45am - 12:00pm UK

Climate action in language education – panel discussion

Moderator led discussion on Climate action in language education.

Panellists: Katherine Bilsborough, Tom Kral and Stephen Haggard

 


The British Council’s Climate Connection is a global initiative, uniting people around the world to meet the climate challenge.

 

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