University Education for Sustainability: Topics of Foreign Language Teaching

Abstract

An effective and novel way to evaluate the quality and amount of work done towards Education for Sustainable Development is to examine the conversational topics offered for students in English as a Foreign Language [EFL] textbooks. The considered problem includes educational material presented in EFL university textbooks published in Russia over 2010–2020. The research aims to reveal how much EFL textbooks have changed towards sustainability. Using content analysis of the topics and methodological analysis of exercises presented in EFL textbooks for university students, we revealed three undecided problems: (1) the EFL textbooks published in Russia have not overcome the problem of enriching textbook content with sustainability topics; (2) the topics presented in the analyzed books do not cover the whole range of sustainability issues; (3) the variety of exercises used in EFL textbooks for university students is limited. The obtained results may be used to improve EFL textbooks. The methodology and research approach provided in the paper may be useful for further investigation of textbooks in many other disciplines.