Green Gown Awards 2020 - De Montfort University - Highly Commended

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Learning English through sustainability: Teaching international students English for academic purposes using the SDGs

Every summer, between 600 and 1000 international students study on De Montfort University’s (DMU) Pre-sessional English Programme to learn the English Language and academic skills required for degree study. Chief amongst these are the ability to think critically, and to engage in constructive discussions with peers around key issues. The SDGs provide the perfect framework through which to learn such skills, since they are about addressing the greatest challenges facing our planet and working together to find solutions.  

Since 2018, DMU’s Centre for English Language Learning has run a project to write, then teach in-house pre-sessional materials with the SDGs as their core theme, and in 2020 ran a full 8-week programme using these, totalling almost 200 hours of classroom content.  

The success of this project means our students now go onto their degrees not only with improved English, but a strong motivation to work towards the SDGs in their own lives. 

Top 3 learnings:

1. The SDGs have the power to engage international students across a range of subject disciplines. 
2. SDGs are the perfect vehicle through which to teach students academic skills. 
3. Working towards the SDGs helps us to develop cross-faculty working processes.