HUNG-CHUN WANG (NATIONAL TAIWAN NORMAL UNIVERSITY)

TEACHING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS THROUGH PICTURE BOOKS: A COMPLEXITY THEORY PERSPECTIVE : GLOBAL ISSUES IN LANGUAGE EDUCATION

With increasing worldwide attention on the importance of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), many English teachers in Taiwan are integrating SDGs into their lessons to raise students’ awareness of these issues and their global importance. To achieve these goals, picture books are widely adopted as a teaching tool in both elementary and junior high schools. Focusing on SDGs 5 (Gender Equality), 14 (Life Below Water) and 15 (Life on Land), this study investigates the beliefs and practices of six junior high school English teachers who used picture books to teach one of these goals. It particularly adopts a Complexity Theory perspective (Zheng, 2013, 2015) to explore the relationship of their beliefs and practices within the broader social and educational context. Data were collected through video recordings of the teachers’ picture book lessons, and individual interviews that involved stimulated recall. During the interviews, they delineated their teaching objectives and instructional procedures, and reflected on their pedagogical plans by watching selected parts of their videos. All data were qualitatively analyzed through thematic analysis. Results indicate several prominent beliefs about the use of picture books to teach SDGs, including reinforcing students’ recently learned English knowledge, increasing their awareness of the SDGs, relating issues to their life experiences, and encouraging them to take actionable steps. Additionally, the activities implemented in their lessons were primarily language-focused. Their beliefs and practices interacted with the social and educational context. Based on these findings, this study discusses pedagogical implications to support teachers in using picture books to teach SDGs.

Hung-chun Wang is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at National Taiwan Normal University. His research expertise lies at the interface of creativity research and English L2 education. He is also interested in researching computer-assisted language learning, bilingual education, and the multicultural competence of English L2 learners.