Education for Sustainable Development(ESD) in EL Teacher Education (ESDELTE)

About Our Project and Our Work

The Project Summary

ESDELTE is an AEIF 2023 Funded Project, developed by two US exchange program alumni from Türkiye amid recent devastating earthquake in the area; Prof. Dr. Hasan BEDİR (the head of ELT Department at Çukurova University) and Lecturer Ayşe Dilay EROĞLU, a PhD candidate at Çukurova University and lecturer at Tarsus University.
In order to facilitate teacher training activities that comply to ESD and ELT, the two cooperated with colleges in the cities of disaster: Şanlıurfa, Gaziantep, Hatay, and Adana.

The Project Goals

The purpose of this project is to communicate the importance of ESD as well as practical ways to implement ESD in pre-service teacher education to develop their knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to think globally and act locally. We seek to shed some light on how instructors might create curricula while still taking into account the ESD pillars, which are crucial to the region effected by the earthquake and required by the society.

Our Project Outcomes

The short-term outcomes of the project include changes in the knowledge, awareness, skills and attitudes of pre-service teachers. Project participants will:

Gain knowledge of the concept of sustainability (the balance between environment, society and the economy) through problem based, project based and inquiry based learning.
Gain knowledge of SDGs and focus more on social issues which are highly needed in the disaster area such as “Hunger, Good Health and Well-Being, Gender Equality, Affordable and Clean Energy, and Quality Education in particular.
Gain knowledge of how to develop the quality of education in their practicum.

The intermediate outcomes include changes in the behavior and practices of pre-service teachers by:

Demonstrating the integration of ESD concepts and practices with student learning in English Language Classes.

In the long run, ESDELTE project will meet the following objectives:

Contribute to the improvement of teacher education policies and practices in Türkiye, and in the USA by creating networks and communities of practice on teacher education which aim to,
Bring together providers of initial teacher education (pre-service education for future teachers) providers of continuing professional development (in-service),
Teacher association, ministries of national education and stakeholders to develop and test strategies and programs for professional learning that is effective, accessible and transferable to other contexts.

The ESDELTE project will also provide the following outcomes:

Enhance the internationalization of teacher education through innovative and practical collaboration with teacher educators and teachers in USA by sharing experiences for the further development of teacher education in both countries.
This collaboration will contribute to the learning in the digital world, sustainability, equity and inclusion, also to the development of teachers courses, modules and other learning opportunities on these topics.
Apply and test a pre-service teacher training framework using virtual, physical and blended methods to support teachers’ continuous professional development in order to enhance the quality as well as to make ESD an integral part of teacher education provision in Türkiye.

Develop sustainable collaboration between teacher education providers both in Türkiye and in the U.S.S. with an impact to the quality of teacher education in Türkiye and with a view to inform teacher education polices at the world and national levels.