Since United Nation Member States have adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, a lot of work has gone into integrating these into school curricula, individual lessons, teacher training, etc.
Some of this work is also directly related to language teaching. Here’re some examples:
Book with lesson plans for each SDG
A book in the ‘Integrating…’ series by the British Council was published in 2017 with the title Integrating global issues in the creative English language classroom. Each chapter is devoted to one of the SDGs and includes lesson plans and activities around the particular SDG. As with the whole series, the book can be downloaded for free.
SDG and academic soft skills integrated EAP course kit
Develop EAP is a free course consisting of classroom material, slide sets, a VLE (Moodle) and assessment tools and can be used in university academic English courses, such as pre-sessionals. The content focuses on the SDGs and also teaches academic soft skills.It has won the 2017 ELTons Award for Innovation in Learner Resources. Read more about the course and download it.
Integrating SDGs and digital literacy skills
An interesting approach to integrating the SDGs into language learning and teacher training is taken by Owain Llewellyn, who created a website with training videos for teachers and lessons plans that both teach about the SDGs and digital literacies. It provides examples of how learners can improve their language skills and digital literacies skills while discussing SDGs and participating in hands-on activities to bring it all together. Owain explains the reason behind the website and the rationale for integrating these kills.
Individual lesson plans
Some teachers also share individual lesson plans that deal with the SDGs, for example a jigsaw listening activity by Jessica Mackay in which learners watch two different TEDtalks related to the SDGs, then share information and discuss the issues.
I am now also tagging my shared Sustainability Lessons and anything related to SDGs, such as this post, with ‘SDGs’ in general, or if they relate to specific ones: ‘SDG 3‘, SDG 6‘ , ‘SDG 11‘ etc.
Updates
I’ll update this blog post when I come across more lesson plans or resources related to the SDGs in language teaching. Please add anything you think should be listed here in the comments section, including your own lesson plans if you’ve shared them online.