THE 4^th UTIC 2017?

Why ELT for Sustainable Development?

"In todays' world where individuals are increasingly aware of ecological connectedness and globally shared responsibility, the teaching and learning of English needs to make contributions to education and humans' well-being on a long-term, steady, reliable, and meaningful basis. Through culture teaching, English has highlighted gender equality. Through employment opportunities, English has given more access to job markets. Through social network, English has shifted a portion of human population further way from poverty and hunger. English has helped build social network, advocate intercultural understanding, and promote a stronger economy. However, the picture is not always positive but we need to look at two sides of the same theme. In the everyday classroom, teachers are performing their job either with or without the above awareness. In textbooks, writers are either supporting or overlooking such aims. In their learning, students are either guided or left alone to handle the challenge of such future. In many training programs, the practice of skills and knowledge in fixed durations have hardly been followed by research effort to witness more long-term impact. This overall situation with its pros and cons requires us educators of English to come together and share our voices toward making the sustainability endeavour more pronounced in our thinking, more productive in our pedagogy, and more collaborative in our policy. We would like to appeal for your sharing of knowledge, expertise, experience, understanding and action plans through writing and presenting at this conference based on the following sub-themes and more. With unwavering passion we look forward to hearing your diverse voices in this endeavour towards making our discipline a more worthwhile cause for us all, both locally and globally."