Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2019
Abstract
This essay explores the imperative to embrace a new model of education that will engage students in learning about the interconnectedness of our multi species world, sustainability, and global solidarity -- the belief "that unity of humankind can be established on the basis of some basic or core human values" (Korab-Karpowicz 305). Foreign language courses -- in particular advanced-level offerings that address literacy, critical thinking, and cultural comparisons -- are ideal settings for educating for sustainability literacy. Such literacy is essential to our collective twenty-first-century global identity, but it requires transformative educational practices. As we design foreign language courses, we should strive to employ a greater variety of teaching methods and keep in mind the necessity of more comprehensive goals, which include making students more aware of principles that reach beyond forming citizens who will participate in the economic world. Specifically, as twenty-first-century educators, we should strive to imbue our students with a sense of global citizenship to instill personal responsibility that will translate into their making more sustainable choices. When we sensitize students to issues that affect them, and indeed all humankind on our planet, we prepare them to become global citizens, leaders, and stewards of the global commons (Bennett et al.).
Recommended Citation
Sampon-Nicolas, Annette. "Sustainability Literacy in French Literature and Film: From Solitary Reveries to Treks across Deserts." Foreign Language Teaching and the Environment: Theory, Curricula, Institutional Structures, edited by Charlotte Ann Melin, The Modern Language Association of America, 2019, pp. 39-56.
Included in
Environmental Studies Commons, French and Francophone Language and Literature Commons, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Commons