Transformative pedagogy for sustainability: Building the capacity for embedding education for sustainable development into training teachers

The UN Education 2030 Framework (2015) stated that teacher-training should be enhanced for education for sustainable development (ESD). Equipping teachers with knowledge of ESD positions them as change agents for sustainable development.

Acquiring understanding of the sustainable development goals and transformative pedagogies enables them to develop key competencies for ESD. The competencies needed to make meaningful contributions to a community's education.

Novice language teachers have a global reach as change agents as they work in countries contending with localised economic, social, and environmental challenges. Yet the inclusion of ESD in training English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teachers is absent.

Through an educational humanities lens, this action research project aims to embed ESD into an ESOL teacher training program, exploring its potential to empower trainees to address sustainability themes without compromising the acquisition of authentic English language.