Author: Christopher Etchells

Co-Director of ECS - English Country Schools - residential English Language summer courses for children and teenagers. Coordinator of ELT Footprint UK aiming to promote environmental responsibility in UK English Language Teaching.

Categories
Community action Conference Environmental education

Green Women: Leadership in Action.

Teaching for a Better Future. The seventh and final session of our online conference on 6 June will be: Green Women – Weaving Leadership for Environmental Education with Purpose.

Stephany Carrasco Sardon will present the experience of a digital magazine dedicated to making visible socio-environmental projects led by women in Latin America. Through inspiring stories, conscious digital design and collaborative methodologies, a community that promotes environmental education from the territory and action has been woven. This presentation will show how to strengthen women’s leadership networks, communicate with purpose and use accessible tools to educate and transform. An invitation to rethink environmental education as a living, regenerative and deeply human process.

Stephany is an environmental engineer with a master’s degree in Renewable Energy (IMF – Madrid) and UX/UI designer with a focus on digital sustainability. Founder of Green Women, an organisation and magazine dedicated to environmental conservation and women’s empowerment in Latin America. She has spoken at international conferences in countries such as Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina. She has diplomas in sustainability, environmental education and wildlife monitoring (Universidad de Antioquia and Politécnica de Colombia), as well as training in the rights of nature with Earth Law Center and the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana de México.

Join us at Teaching for a Better Future on 6 June 2025.

Full programme here: https://lnkd.in/e5wunqmt

Register free here: https://lnkd.in/es3wx3dk

Categories
Conference Environmental education

More Green, Less Screen!

More Green, Less Screen
More Green, Less Screen!

Join us on 6 June for Teaching For A Better Future – a day of inspiration, innovation and action for educators who believe language teaching can drive meaningful change.

Our sixth session with Lucy Crichton is More Green, Less Screen.

Designing projects for YLs that involve environmental themes is an urgent necessity. But how can we truly involve our students and deepen their learning? Join me as I share 3 ways to encourage students to take care of the planet through planting, the use of natural loose parts, and recipes for a Mud Kitchen.

Lucy Crichton is an ELT educator, young learner specialist, and materials writer based in Brazil. She has given lectures in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. She runs her own school, The Secret Garden, which attends children and teenagers. Her teaching
philosophy comes from her deep love and respect for children.

View the full programme here: https://green-action-elt.uk/events/

Register to attend here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/ogkv4qrSQIaH2tMlyPog9w

Categories
Conference Environmental education

Think Green, Teach Smart

Marcella Villan
Think Green, Teach Smart

Join us on 6 June for Teaching For A Better Future – a day of inspiration, innovation and action for educators who believe language teaching can drive meaningful change.

Our fifth session with Marcella Villan is Think Green, Teach Smart: Systems Thinking in English Language Teaching.

Our world faces complex environmental challenges and English Language Teaching (ELT) must evolve to foster sustainability and make an impact on this. “Think Green, Teach Smart: Systems Thinking in ELT” explores how educators can integrate systems thinking into their teaching to make students understand the bigger picture, promoting ecological awareness and global responsibility. Participants will gain practical strategies for embedding sustainability into language learning to make students see connections between language, society, and the environment, making ELT more holistic, impactful, and future-focused this way. Let’s remember that small shifts in teaching can lead to meaningful global change!

Marcela Villan is an experienced teacher of English from Buenos Aires, Argentina. She specialises in Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development. She has presented widely on these issues at international conferences and events. With over 30 years experience, she has also served as coordinator, head of studies, examiner and teacher trainer.

View the full programme here: https://green-action-elt.uk/events/

Register to attend here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/ogkv4qrSQIaH2tMlyPog9w

Categories
Conference Environmental education

Planet-Based Classroom Hacks

Join us on 6 June for Teaching For A Better Future – a day of inspiration, innovation and action for educators who believe language teaching can drive meaningful change.

Our fourth session with Harry Waters is Planet-Based Classroom Hacks

How do you feel about the climate crisis? How do your students feel? Instead of the usual “How are you?”, why not ask something a little more specific? In this practical session, we’ll explore super simple ways to bring sustainability into everyday lessons without extra work. From meaningful questions to quick classroom hacks, you’ll leave with ready-to-use ideas that foster environmental awareness and build global citizenship. Whether it’s a five-minute warm-up or a subtle language tweak, these small changes can make a big impact.

Harry, a multi-award-winning teacher trainer, climate activist, and TEDx speaker, founded Renewable English to merge language learning with environmental consciousness. He’s the author of “Activities for a Greener Mindset”. Passionate about sustainability, he weaves eco-friendly practices into education, from second-hand shirts to impactful teaching

View the full programme here: https://green-action-elt.uk/events/

Register to attend here

Categories
Conference Environmental education

Speaking, Listening and Sustainability

Join us on 6 June for Teaching For A Better Future – a day of inspiration, innovation and action for educators who believe language teaching can drive meaningful change.

Our third session with Hannah Tucker-Bloom is Speaking, Listening and Sustainability: an Integrated Curriculum for English learners

How can we ensure that our curriculum recognises key world issues while remaining true to EFL roots and being sensitive to the communities we work with? This interactive workshop will promote discussion and group interaction by exploring some aspects of our 12-week Speaking & Listening course that uses 1-2 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals each week as a theme. We will explore how students of different language levels can work on different aspects of the same goal as well as encourage ongoing discussion and action beyond the classroom.

Group Academic Manager (Pathways) at BSC Education, Hannah manages academic programmes including the International Foundation Year. She is involved with developing curriculum products, including incorporating the UN SDGs into Speaking and Listening and supporting the development of BSC’s innovative English Skills for AI course.

View the full programme here: https://green-action-elt.uk/events/

Register to attend here

Categories
Conference Environmental education

Write for the Planet

Join us on 6 June for Teaching For A Better Future – a day of inspiration, innovation and action for educators who believe language teaching can drive meaningful change.

Our second session with Marla Lise and George M Jacobs is Write for the Planet.

Get tips on expressing your environmental cause through writing in this session. Facilitators Dr George Jacobs and Marla Lise will lead participants to explore various pressing environmental issues, and examine how different writing mediums and styles can be adopted or leveraged to push for, show concern or gratitude in the course of your work as a champion for the environment.

Born in Singapore and raised globally, Marla Lise is a hopeless romantic who dreams of a better world. Passionate about stories and environmental education, she runs The English Curve and The Eco Chapter, inspiring systemic change through eco-literary activism while
teaching English and volunteering in conservation. George M Jacobs is an educator and activist in Singapore. He promotes plant-based diets, cooperative learning, environmental education, ecolinguistics, and student-centered learning. He is co-author of the free online book Cooperative Learning and the SDGS, from Peachey Publications.

View the full programme here: https://green-action-elt.uk/events/

Register to attend here

Categories
Climate education Conference

Gamify Sustainabilty

Join us on 6 June for Teaching For A Better Future – a day of inspiration, innovation and action for educators who believe language teaching can drive meaningful change.

We kick off with Gamify Sustainability with Georgia K. Papamichailidou: Step into The Diary of a Green Leader and discover how gamification can turn sustainability into a joyful journey. Through real-life stories and playful strategies, this session explores how educators and leaders can inspire ecoconsciousness across classrooms and teams. From small classroom missions to school-wide green quests, learn how to embed sustainability through games, challenges, and storytelling. Leave with practical ideas and a renewed belief that playful leadership can create powerful, lasting change for a better future.

View the full programme here: https://green-action-elt.uk/events/

Register to attend here

Categories
Climate education Inspiration

Teaching for a Better Future

Join us for a day of inspiration, innovation, and action, designed for educators who believe language teaching can drive meaningful change. This is more than just another ELT event – it’s a global call to action from educators across three continents, united in using their classrooms as catalysts for a greener, more conscious world.

Conference Highlights:

  • Gamify Sustainability with Georgia Papamichailidou
    Learn how playful leadership, storytelling, and classroom challenges can spark eco-consciousness in learners and staff alike.
  • Write for the Planet with Marla Lise & George Jacobs
    Explore how writing—reflective, persuasive, and creative—can help students champion environmental causes.
  • Teach the SDGs through Speaking & Listening with Hannah Tucker-Bloom
    Discover a dynamic curriculum linking English learning to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
  • Planet-Based Classroom Hacks with Harry Waters
    Take away practical, low-prep ideas for bringing sustainability into everyday lessons.
  • Think Green, Teach Smart with Marcela Villan
    Dive into systems thinking and learn to connect language learning with environmental awareness and global responsibility.
  • More Green, Less Screen! with Lucy Crichton
    Get hands-on ideas for eco-projects that engage young learners beyond the screen.
  • Green Women: Leadership in Action with Stephany Carrasco Sardon
    Be inspired by a powerful initiative celebrating women-led environmental education across Latin America.

View the complete programme here

Register to attend here

Categories
Climate education Community action

Admitting Failure

photo of Rupert Read

– And moving forward

Our upcoming online conference on 6 June is titled Teaching for a Better Future. The title was chosen with care and intention. During the event, we’ll be showcasing practical, inspiring examples of how language educators around the world are engaging students with nature and climate issues – helping them imagine, and perhaps shape, a better future.

But what does better really mean?

It’s a relative term. While most of us want to believe in a brighter future, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the mounting evidence that the road ahead looks deeply challenging. This isn’t a call to give up. And we absolutely need to continue bearing down on the production of greenhouse gases. Rather, it might be time to shift our perspective. Perhaps the goal now is not to create an objectively better future, but to make the future less bad than it could otherwise be.

This shift brings tough questions – about hope, resilience, and motivation – particularly for educators tasked with preparing students for the world ahead.

In this light, we recommend reading a thought-provoking piece by Rupert Read of the Climate Majority Project. In it, he argues:

“The true power of the climate movement is now to admit our own powerlessness.”

It’s a stark but important point. By letting go of false optimism, we free ourselves from the exhausting effort of maintaining denial about the reality of our predicament. That emotional energy, Read suggests, can be redirected – toward more meaningful action, deeper connection, and more honest engagement with our students and communities.

You can read the full article here: The true power of the climate movement is now to admit our own powerlessness

Categories
books Inspiration Politics

Roger Hallam

graph showing sustainability curve

In a recent webinar, John Crick from Aspire.Sustain shared a striking U-shaped graph. At the bottom sat the “Trough of Disillusion,” with the “Slopes of Enlightenment” climbing out of it, eventually levelling off into the “Plateau of Productivity.” If you’re curious, you can watch the full video here.

That image stuck with me – especially when thinking about how we respond to the climate emergency. On bad days, I find myself trying to avoid the Trough of Disillusion. On better days, I feel like I’m climbing the (early) Slopes of Enlightenment, spurred on by the hope that comes from action.

In this spirit, I want to recommend a powerful podcast: Designing the Revolution, by Roger Hallam – co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, and founder of Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain. Hallam received a four-year prison sentence in the UK after being convicted in 2024 for organising motorway protests two years earlier. His goal was to draw attention to the dire threat caused by greenhouse gas pollution. He is one of around eleven people currently imprisoned in the UK for similar acts of protest.

Paradoxically, prison seems to have been a liberating experience for Hallam. Speaking over the prison phone for his podcast, he shares a renewed sense of hope and insight, with episodes like A New Way of Seeing, Finding Freedom Within, and The Prison of Perception. He has also published a new book, 50 Articles the Media Wouldn’t Publish. Together, the podcast and book offer fresh ways to think, act, and grow – both personally and politically. For me, they’ve been a much-needed lift out of the Trough of Disillusion.

Highly recommended.