How To Start Talking About The Climate Emergency As An Online Language Teacher
There’s a joke I like to tell in my email signature, and it goes like this:
I donate 1% of my revenue to environmental causes* because Earth is the only place in the universe where you can stream movies.
It’s funny because it’s true. And also sad. But we can all grasp the basic crux of it: Earth is our planet, we’re dependent on it and interconnected with it. So if we want to do the things we love, we need to take care of it.
All the world’s environmental problems (climate crisis, biodiversity crisis etc) pretty much boil down to this: what do you care about? Great — you need a planet for that. That’s it. That’s all it is. It’s simultaneously daunting and terrifying. But also comfortingly simple.
So, no matter what you do, and that includes you language teacher, you need a viable planet to do it on. Slight problem — our planet is in a bit of a mess. And if you think you can solve your problems by heading to Mars with Elon Musk, then I suggest you watch Total Recall pronto.
What can you do then? Well, climate scientist Kathryn Hayhoe says that the number one thing we can do for the planet is talk.
So you’re in luck — talking is our game, we’re language teachers after all.
A couple of years ago scorching summers and heatwaves were doing my head in. So I decided to go on a couple of English learning podcasts to discuss the climate crisis. It felt good to talk.
More people are worried and stressed out about these issues than you think. But when we keep our anxieties to ourselves that makes us more miserable!
So apart from going on podcasts, how else can you as a language teacher discuss our planetary malaise?
7 Ways To Talk About The Climate Crisis As An Online Language Teacher
#1. Dictionaries — lexicographers, not usually at the vanguard of linguistic innovation, have started adding a whole bunch of climate and ecological crisis related words such as “eco-anxiety” and “net-zero” to dictionaries. This article, about the updates to the Oxford English Dictionary made just before the COP 26 climate summit, could make an excellent discussion starter. You could also ask your students if they have equivalent words in their language.
#2 Framing — how we talk about the climate crisis is just as important as what we talk about. You’ll have noticed that I use the terms “climate emergency”, “climate crisis”, or “climate breakdown” rather than the more pedestrian “climate change”. British newspaper, “The Guardian” took this editorial line in 2019. You don’t have to believe in the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis to know that how we talk about something can influence how we think about it. So a fun project could be to look at how the media frames the climate discussion in your students’ target language.
#3 Countries — If the country(ies) of the language you teach have been hit by drought, wildfire, or flooding, chances are your students know and it could come up in lessons. So you may as well be ready to discuss it.
#4 Book clubs — if you feel a bit clueless about climate, then there are lots of brilliant books for a non-specialist audience you can read. I really love the work of Kimberly Nicholas, author of “Under the Sky We Make”. Why not start a climate book or movie club to discuss these issues? Sadly, there is a woefully inadequate amount of fiction about the climate crisis but hopefully that’s starting to change.
#5 Connect it to your students’ interests — if you’re interested in something, anything, then you can get interested in the climate crisis as it literally cuts across the entire spectrum of human activity. Like I said, daunting but also simple. For instance, if your students are into art and design, you could talk about artworks to do with climate and ecological breakdown. See also The Colour of the Climate Crisis.
#6 Translate — there are some quite literal language-related things you can do. The “Affaire du Siècle” campaign which won a massive climate victory in the courts recently in France is looking for people who can translate between French, English and Spanish. The thing is you also need legal knowledge which is why I haven’t volunteered — I’d be too scared of making a mistake! You could also do what Simon Robinson does and translate articles in English on the climate emergency into Japanese or whatever language you speak.
#7 Fossil fuels in schools — so it turns out that the fossil fuel industry has been supplying US schools with lesson plans for years. And even going in to schools to talk about how wonderful fossil fuels are. Check the latest series of Drilled, The ABCs of Big Oil, for more on this story. As educators, we need to be aware of these practices so we can push back. As you listen to the series, you’ll understand the teachers — they barely have time to pee in between classes or read up on climate, so they were happy to accept what looked like well-designed lesson plans.
I hope that these 7 ways to talk about the climate and ecological emergency give you a way into discussing this crucial issue with students or colleagues. It’s not the easiest subject to broach. But we can’t stay silent on the most important topic of the day.
Over To You
Have you brought up these issues in class before? Were they in the textbook? How did your students react? Have you got more ideas for tackling this topic?
*I’m a member of 1% for the Planet here in France.