Using Young Adult Literature in Order to Promote Values of Sustainability in EFL Learners

Diplomarbeit

zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades

einer Magistra der Philosophie

an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz

vorgelegt von Elisabeth KUTTNER

am Institut für Anglistik

Begutachterin: Univ.-Prof. BA. M.A. PhD Sarah Jane Mercer

Graz, 2019

Acknowledgements

IT TAKES A VILLAGE …

Zunächst möchte ich mich bei meiner Betreuerin Ms. Mercer bedanken, die meine Diplomarbeit mit einer Engelsgeduld und einem beeindruckenden Grundoptimismus betreut hat. Vielen herzlichen Dank für Ihr hilfreiches Feedback, Ihre aufbauenden Worte, die vielen persönlichen Gespräche in Ihren Sprechstunden, spontane Skype-Konferenzen, Buchempfehlungen und für die unglaubliche Schnelligkeit, mit der Sie Kapitel korrigieren. Ich habe im letzten Jahr extrem viel über wissenschaftliches Arbeiten gelernt und das wäre ohne Sie nicht möglich gewesen.

Dann möchte ich an dieser Stelle selbstverständlich meinen Eltern danken. Ich könnte ganze Diplomarbeiten darüber schreiben, wie dankbar ich euch bin (ihr denkt euch gerade wahrscheinlich: „Bitte nicht noch eine Diplomarbeit, die eine hat uns gereicht.“ xD) und trotzdem wäre ich nicht annähernd in der Lage zu vermitteln, was ich euch verdanke. DANKE für die Geduld, mit der ihr mich beim Erwachsenwerden unterstützt habt. DANKE für die bedingungslose Liebe und für den ein oder anderen Tritt in den Hintern, den ich dringend gebraucht habe. DANKE dafür, dass nicht nur diese Diplomarbeit, sondern einfach alles in meinem Leben ohne euch nicht möglich gewesen wäre. DANKE, Mama und Papa. Ihr seid die besten Eltern, die man sich wünschen kann. Ich bin ein Glückspilzchen, dass ich euch habe.

Danken möchte ich auch meiner Oma und meinem Opa. Eine schönere Kindheit, als ihr sie mir bereitet habt, kann es nicht geben. Opa, du herrlich verrückter Geschichtenerzähler. Und Oma, du Fels in der Brandung, der immer ein offenes Ohr und weise Worte parat hat. Ihr habt mir ganz viel Phantasie, innere Stärke und Selbstwertgefühl mit auf meinen Weg gegeben. Und auch im „Jahr der Diplomarbeit“ wart ihr immer für mich da, mit aufbauenden Worten und kuschelig-tröstenden Bergdoktorabenden. Ich liebe euch über alles und ihr werdet mein Leben lang in meinem Herzen wohnen und mich so überallhin begleiten; auf allen meinen Wegen werdet ihr stets bei mir sein.

Ein besseres Geschenk, als dich zur Freundin zu haben, hätte mir das Universum niemals machen können, liebste Babsimaus. Ich finde gar keine Worte, um zu beschreiben, was du mir bedeutest. DANKE dafür, dass du immer für mich da bist. DANKE, DANKE, DANKE. Am liebsten würde ich jetzt einfach eine ganze Seite abwechselnd mit „DANKE“ und „DU BIST MEINE ALLERLIEBSTE MAUS“ vollschreiben – das würde glaube ich am ehesten zum

Ausdruck bringen, was ich empfinde. ;) Du bist seit Anbeginn unserer Freundschaft immer für mich da gewesen, aber ein ganz besonderes Danke möchte ich dafür aussprechen, wie sehr du mir dabei geholfen hast, durchs letzte Jahr zu kommen. Mit dir ist es immer am feinsten, superlustig, entspannt, gemütlich, liebevoll, aufregend … du gibst mir Erdung; wenn du bei mir bist, dann bin ich selbst auch bei mir. Ich bin froh, dass wir uns auf dieser Welt gefunden haben, und anders könnte ich es mir auch schon lange nicht mehr vorstellen.

Ein großes Dankeschön auch an die Liebe meines Lebens, Lolomaus. Ohne dich hätte ich das letzte Jahr ganz bestimmt nicht überstanden. Danke dafür, wie sehr du für mich da warst und wie viel Sicherheit und Halt du mir gegeben hast; danke fürs wochenlange Zuhören, für unvergessliche Partynächte und für all die Lektionen, die ich im letzten Jahr nicht auf diese intensive Weise wahrgenommen hätte, wenn ich sie nicht in Gesprächen mit dir hätte reflektieren können. Dank dir habe ich mir die Kacke gegönnt und bin dem Sumpf der Hoffnung und Hormone gestärkt entstiegen. ;) DANKE für vierzehn Jahre Freundschaft – unglaublich, wie die Zeit vergeht. <3 Du bedeutest mir die Welt und ich bin sehr, sehr stolz auf dich.

An meine allerliebste Alimaus: DANKE für die wunderschönen Stunden, die wir miteinander verbringen – wir und zwei Soda Zitron, ein bis zwei Cappuccino und ein bis zwei schwarze Verlängerte. :D Ein Kaffeetscherl mit dir ist immer die pure Quality Time. Wenn wir uns irgendwo treffen, dann fühle ich mich – von dem Moment an, wenn unsere Pobacken die Stühle berühren und wir es uns gemütlich machen – als würden wir nebeneinander in Hängematten an einem weißen Karibikstrand baumeln und fruchtige Cocktails schlürfen. DANKE auch für deine stete Hilfe und Unterstützung in allen Angelegenheit, für die intensiven und offenen Gespräche, fürs gemeinsame Lachen und all den Spaß, den wir schon miteinander gehabt haben, für deine lustigen Geschichten und deine guten Ratschläge. DANKE für unsere schöne Freundschaft – man sagt ja immer: Freunde, die man im Studium kennen lernt, hat man ein Leben lang. Bei uns beiden bin ich mir da ganz sicher. :-)

Ach, Toto – was soll ich sagen? Du bist mein Held. Wer hätte sich mein LimeSurvey- Passwort gemerkt, wenn nicht du? Wer hätte mir gezeigt, wie man Inhaltsverzeichnisse und Diagramme erstellt, wenn nicht du? Wer hätte mir stundenlang dabei zugehört, wie ich über Word-Formatierungsprobleme schimpfe, wenn nicht du? Es wäre absolut keine Übertreibung zu sagen, dass diese Diplomarbeit ohne dich wahrscheinlich noch ein weiteres Jahr gebraucht hätte. DANKE dafür, dass man sich auf dich immer verlassen kann, für unsere lustigen Gespräche und die schöne Zeit, die wir miteinander haben, für unsere manchmal komplett

sinnbefreiten Telefonate und dafür, dass du mich magst, mit all meinen hirnbedingten Komplettaussetzern, ob lustig oder ernst, durch dick und dünn, seit vierzehn Jahren die feinste Freundschaft. Ich hab dich lieb und zwar für immer und ewig. Aber jetzt ganz ernsthaft, noch eine Frage zum Schluss: Why do you hate me? Why do you hate me so much? :D

Ein großes DANKE an alle meine Freunde und an die Grazer „Extended Family“ – ihr habt meine Studienzeit zu dem gemacht, was sie war … denn letztlich geht es genau darum: Um die Menschen in deinem Leben. Jetzt müsste ich natürlich sehr ausschweifen, um euch alle namentlich zu nennen, aber sagen wir einfach mal so: Waren wir in den letzten Jahren hin und wieder zusammen was trinken? Oder sind wir vielleicht gemeinsam im Stadtpark gelunzt? Haben wir irgendwann mal zusammengewohnt? Oder haben wir zusammen zu d&b oder Techno gefeiert? Waren wir vielleicht am Nachmittag auf einen Kaffee? Oder haben wir zusammen an Seminararbeiten gewerkelt, gelernt oder sonstigen Unikram gemacht? JA?! Dann meine ich DICH und sage DANKE dafür, dass du ein Teil davon warst, was man sozusagen als meine „Studien-Ära“ bezeichnen könnte. Keine Angst, jetzt bin ich zwar fertig, aber es geht genauso geil weiter. ;)

DANKE UND TSCHÜSS! :D

Eidesstattliche Erklärung

Ich erkläre ehrenwörtlich, dass ich die vorliegende Arbeit selbstständig und ohne fremde Hilfe verfasst, andere als die angegebenen Quellen nicht benutzt und die den Quellen wörtlich oder inhaltlich entnommenen Stellen als solche kenntlich gemacht habe. Die Arbeit wurde bisher in gleicher oder ähnlicher Form keiner anderen inländischen oder ausländischen Prüfungsbehörde vorgelegt und auch noch nicht veröffentlicht. Die vorliegende Fassung entspricht der eingereichten elektronischen Version.

Datum: Unterschrift:

Abstract

During the last decades, there has been an increase in awareness concerning environmental issues in general and the role that humanity plays in causing environmental degradation in particular. Among scholars, there is wide-spread consensus that education will play a crucial role in combating problems related to sustainability. In order to prepare current and future generations for the environmental challenges they will be faced with, education paradigms need to be changed so as to support students in developing a mindset which is oriented towards principles of environmental sustainability and adopting more sustainable lifestyles. Teaching towards sustainability needs to be implemented into all school subjects and can be realized via the use of a variety of different methods and tools.

This thesis focuses on the thematization of environmental sustainability in the EFL classroom as well as on the usage of Young Adult Literature as a tool for teaching towards sustainability in the EFL classroom. A study was conducted in order to explore to what extent EFL teachers believe that the EFL classroom constitutes an environment suitable for teaching towards sustainability and in how far they consider Young Adult Literature as suitable for teaching towards sustainability in the context of EFL teaching. Furthermore, the participants were presented with a reading project on the topic of sustainability in the fashion industry and were asked to provide feedback in order to allow for the reading project’s optimization.

The study revealed that, to some extent, teachers are aware of the relationship between EFL teaching and teaching towards sustainability. However, there seems to still be potential to increase teachers’ awareness concerning the suitability of the EFL classroom for teaching towards sustainability. With regard to using Young Adult Literature, a considerable number of teachers voiced the opinion that YAL can be considered a valuable tool in teaching towards sustainability. With regard to the reading project, the majority of teachers provided the feedback that the completion of individual activities as well as the reading project as a whole would take up more time than is accounted for.

Kurzfassung

Im Laufe der letzten Jahrzehnte ist es zu einem verstärkten Bewusstsein bezüglich die Umwelt betreffender Probleme sowie des Zusammenhangs zwischen menschlichem Handeln und der Zerstörung der Umwelt gekommen. Unter Wissenschaftlern herrscht Einigkeit darüber, dass dem Faktor Bildung eine zentrale Rolle darin zukommen wird, der fortschreitenden Umweltzerstörung entgegenzuwirken und nachhaltiges Handeln zu etablieren. Um jetzige sowie zukünftige Generationen auf die Herausforderungen der Zukunft adäquat vorzubereiten, ist ein Wandel der Bildungssysteme insofern notwendig, als dass Schulsysteme zukünftig Schüler und Schülerinnen dabei unterstützen müssen, eine an den Prinzipien der Nachhaltigkeit orientierte Einstellung zu erlangen und dementsprechend einen nachhaltigen Lebensstil annehmen zu können.

Diese Diplomarbeit fokussiert sich auf das Thema der Nachhaltigkeit im Englischunterricht sowie des Einsatzes von Jugendliteratur, um im Rahmen des Englischunterrichts Aspekte des Themenfelds „Nachhaltigkeit“ zu erarbeiten. Die Studie wurde mit dem Ziel durchgeführt, zu evaluieren, inwiefern Englisch unterrichtende Lehrerinnen und Lehrer den Englischunterricht für geeignet halten, um darin Nachhaltigkeit zu thematisieren, und ob diese Lehrerinnen und Lehrer Jugendliteratur für ein geeignetes Mittel zum Zwecke dieser Thematisierung halten. Zudem wurde den Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmern der Studie ein Reading Project, das Schülern und Schülerinnen den Themenbereich „Nachhaltigkeit in der Bekleidungsindustrie“ näherbringen soll, präsentiert; und sie wurden darum gebeten, ausführliches Feedback zu dem Reading Project bereitzustellen, um die Überarbeitung desselben zu ermöglichen.

Die Studie ergab, dass EnglischlehrerInnen sich des Zusammenhangs zwischen dem Englischunterricht und der Bildung hin zu Nachhaltigkeit zu einem gewissen Grad bewusst sind. Allerdings scheint Potential zur Stärkung dieses Bewusstseins gegeben. In Bezug auf die Verwendung von Jugendliteratur konnte festgestellt werden, dass LehrerInnen den Einsatz von Jugendliteratur für ein geeignetes Mittel halten, um im Rahmen des Englischunterrichts das Themenfeld „Nachhaltigkeit“ zu erarbeiten. Das Feedback zu dem präsentierten Reading Project ergab, dass die Lehrerinnen und Lehrer die zur Erledigung der einzelnen Aufgabenstellungen sowie zur Durchführung des gesamten Reading Projects anberaumte Zeit für unrealistisch halten und dementsprechend eine Kürzung des Projects oder das Einplanen von mehr Zeit empfehlen.

Table of Contents

I. List of Appendices ...... 1 II. List of Figures ...... 1 III. List of Tables ...... 4 1 Introduction ...... 5 2 Literature Review ...... 6 2.1 Education for Sustainable Development ...... 6 2.1.1 Sustainability – defining the term ...... 7 2.1.2 Human concern for the environment – historical overview ...... 8 2.1.2.1 The Brundtland Report ...... 9 2.1.2.2 The Earth Summit ...... 9 2.1.2.3 The World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg 2002 .. 10 2.1.2.4 Millennium Development Goals ...... 10 2.1.3 ESD – Education for Sustainable Development ...... 11 2.1.3.1 The UNESCO Decade of Education for Sustainable Development ...... 11 2.1.3.2 The goals of ESD ...... 12 2.1.3.3 EU recommendation on ESD ...... 12 2.1.3.4 Austrian Strategy for Education for Sustainable Development ...... 13 2.1.3.5 A plea for implementing ESD ...... 14 2.1.4 ESD in the Austrian Curriculum and the Austrian standardized A-levels ...... 15 2.1.4.1 The Austrian Curriculum ...... 16 2.1.4.2 Standardized A-levels ...... 20 2.2 Teaching and learning towards sustainability ...... 21 2.2.1 Values, knowledge and skills for sustainability ...... 22 2.2.1.1 Values of sustainability ...... 22 2.2.1.2 Knowledge for sustainability ...... 25 2.2.1.3 Skills for sustainability ...... 26 2.2.2 Didactic principles of teaching towards sustainability ...... 29 2.2.3 Limitations to teaching towards sustainability ...... 30 2.2.3.1 Can – and should – we “teach” sustainable behaviour? ...... 31 2.2.3.2 The attitude-behaviour-gap ...... 32 2.3 Teaching towards sustainability in the EFL classroom ...... 33 2.3.1 CLIL as a framework for teaching towards sustainability ...... 34

2.3.1.1 Defining CLIL ...... 34 2.3.1.2 Advantages of using CLIL in Foreign Language Teaching ...... 34 2.3.1.3 CLIL and teaching towards sustainability ...... 36 2.3.2 Suitability of the EFL classroom for implementing ESD ...... 37 2.4 Using YAL in order to promote values of sustainability in the EFL classroom ...... 39 2.4.1 Definition of Young Adult Literature (YAL) ...... 39 2.4.2 Literature and language acquisition in the EFL classroom ...... 40 2.4.3 YAL as a “gateway to literature” ...... 41 2.4.4 Using YAL in order to teach towards sustainability ...... 41 2.4.4.1 Literature’s influence on values and behaviour ...... 41 2.4.4.2 YAL as a source of authentic materials ...... 42 2.4.4.3 YAL and students’ ability to take on different perspectives ...... 43 2.4.4.4 YAL, cultural learning and sustainability ...... 44 2.4.4.5 YAL and critical thinking ...... 45 3 The Reading Project ...... 47 3.1 Rationale for choosing the topic ...... 47 3.1.1 Reasons for choosing one particular topic ...... 47 3.1.2 Definition/explanation and importance of the topic ...... 48 3.1.3 Relevance of the topic ...... 49 3.2 Rationale for choosing the books ...... 51 3.3 Rationale for choosing the activities ...... 53 3.3.1 Underlying ideas and principles ...... 53 3.3.1.1 Extensive Reading ...... 53 3.3.1.2 Integrating skills ...... 54 3.3.1.3 Task-based language teaching ...... 55 3.3.2 Reasons for choosing individual activities ...... 56 3.3.2.1 Lesson 1 ...... 57 3.3.2.2 Lesson 2 ...... 60 3.3.2.3 Lesson 3 ...... 64 3.3.2.4 Lesson 4 ...... 67 3.3.2.5 Lesson 5 ...... 68 3.3.2.6 Lesson 6 ...... 71 3.3.2.7 Lesson 7 ...... 72 4 The Research Methodology ...... 74

4.1 The Research Questions and the Purpose of the Study ...... 74 4.2 Research Design ...... 75 4.2.1 Using a questionnaire ...... 75 4.2.2 Design of the Questionnaire ...... 77 4.2.2.1 Length ...... 77 4.2.2.2 Language ...... 77 4.2.2.3 Structure and layout ...... 78 4.2.2.4 Anonymity ...... 78 4.2.3 Questionnaire items ...... 79 4.2.3.1 Welcome text and final remarks ...... 79 4.2.3.2 Question types ...... 80 4.2.3.3 Sequencing of items ...... 82 4.2.3.4 Question groups ...... 83 4.2.4 Piloting the questionnaire ...... 85 4.2.5 Participants ...... 86 4.2.6 Administering the Questionnaire ...... 88 4.2.7 Analysing the data ...... 88 4.2.8 Ethics ...... 89 5 Questionnaire Findings ...... 91 5.1 Question group 1: The topic “sustainability” in the EFL classroom ...... 91 5.2 Question group 2: Using YAL in order to teach towards sustainability in the EFL classroom ...... 96 5.3 Question group 3: Feedback regarding the reading project ...... 102 5.4 Question group 4: Feedback on individual lessons ...... 110 5.5 Question group 5: Feedback on selected activities ...... 114 5.6 Question groups 6, 7 and 8: Motivation, Language Use and Sustainable Thinking 119 5.7 Question group 9: Further remarks and suggestions for improvement ...... 138 6 Discussion of the findings ...... 140 6.1 To what extent do EFL teachers believe that the EFL classroom is suitable for teaching towards sustainability? ...... 140 6.1.1 Awareness concerning the interdisciplinary nature of ESD ...... 140 6.1.2 Rationale for considering the EFL classroom as suitable or unsuitable ...... 142 6.1.3 The circumstances in Austrian secondary schools ...... 143 6.1.4 Long-term positive effects of the reading project on students ...... 144

6.2 To what extent do EFL teachers believe that YAL is suitable for teaching towards sustainability in the EFL classroom? ...... 145 6.2.1 The importance of teacher authenticity in teaching towards sustainability ..... 145 6.2.2 YAL as complementary materials in teaching towards sustainability ...... 146 6.2.3 Feedback regarding the elements of a reading project ...... 147 6.3 How did EFL teachers evaluate the Reading Project put forward in this thesis? .... 149 6.3.1 The factor of time ...... 149 6.3.2 Facilitating sustainable thinking ...... 151 6.4 Critical Reflections on the study ...... 151 6.5 Critical Reflection on other ways in which the Reading Project could be improved 153 6.5.1 ESD concepts and principles ...... 153 6.5.1.1 A whole-school-approach ...... 153 6.5.1.2 Experiential learning ...... 155 6.5.1.3 Learning in and from Nature ...... 156 6.5.1.4 Empowering and encouraging students ...... 158 6.5.2 Adapting ESD concepts and principles for the EFL classroom ...... 161 7 Conclusions ...... 166 7.1 Main Conclusions ...... 166 7.2 Implications for Further Research ...... 167 7.3 Implications for Language Teaching ...... 168 8 Sources ...... 169 9 Appendices ...... 185 9.1 Appendix A: Reading Project ...... 185 9.2 Appendix B: Questionnaire ...... 254 9.3 Appendix C: Open-ended questions – teacher responses ...... 267

I. List of Appendices

Appendix A: Reading Project

Appendix B: Questionnaire

Appendix C: Open-ended Questions: Responses

II. List of Figures

Figure 1: 21st century skills according to English et al. (2012: 3) ...... 27 Figure 2: Example from the online questionnaire: Design of a question matrix ...... 80 Figure 3: Example from the online questionnaire: Yes/No question ...... 81 Figure 4: Example from the online questionnaire: Checklist ...... 81 Figure 5: Example from the online questionnaire: Open-ended clarification question ...... 82 Figure 6: Results of the question: "Als EnglischlehrerIn gehört es zu meinen Aufgaben, SchülerInnen das Bewusstsein und das Wissen zu vermitteln, das sie für eine nachhaltige Lebensweise benötigen." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 92 Figure 7: Results of the question: "Die zeitlichen, strukturellen und curricularen Vorgaben in einer durchschnittlichen höheren Schule in Österreich lassen genug Zeit und Raum für die Thematisierung und Bearbeitung ..." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 93 Figure 8: Results of the question: "Für wie geeignet halten Sie den Englischunterricht, um verschiedene Aspekte der Nachhaltigkeit zu thematisieren und zu vermitteln?" Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 94 Figure 9: Results of the question: "Wie geeignet ist der Einsatz von Jugendliteratur, um Aspekte des Themenfeldes Nachhaltigkeit im Englischunterricht zu vermitteln?" Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 101 Figure 10: Results of the question: "Wie wahrscheinlich ist es, dass Sie das Reading Project als Ganzes für die Arbeit mit Ihren SchülerInnen verwenden würden?" Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 103 Figure 11: Results of the question: "Das Reading Project ist abwechslungsreich und fokussiert in ausreichendem Maße unterschiedliche Kompetenzen." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 104

Figure 12: Results of the question: "Die Activities des Reading Projects sind in einen klaren kommunikativen Kontext eingebettet; die Bedeutung / der Zweck der Activities ist für die SchülerInnen nachvollziehbar." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 105 Figure 13: Results of the question: "Die Inhalte sind so aufbereitet, dass sie für SchülerInnen ansprechend und interessant sind." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 105 Figure 14: Results of the question: "Die Inhalte sind so aufbereitet, dass sie SchülerInnen die Möglichkeit bieten, ihre eigene Lebensrealität mit den behandelten Inhalten in Verbindung zu bringen." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 106 Figure 15: Results of the question: "Die Abfolge der Activities ist durchdacht; die Unterrichtssequenz als Ganzes wirkt stimmig." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 107 Figure 16: Results of the question: "Die für die einzelnen Activities vorgesehene Zeit ist ausreichend." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 107 Figure 17: Results of the question: "Für wie wahrscheinlich halten Sie es, dass das Reading Project langfristig einen positiven Einfluss auf das Konsumverhalten und Kaufentscheidungen der SchülerInnen haben wird?" Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 109 Figure 18: Results of the question: "Würden Sie die Unterrichtsstunde für den Unterricht mit einer elften Schulstufe verwenden?" (Results concerning lessons 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7.) Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 111 Figure 19: Results of the question: "Würden Sie die Unterrichtsstunde für den Unterricht mit einer elften Schulstufe verwenden?" (Results concerning lessons 3 and 6.) Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 111 Figure 20: Results of the question: "Welche der folgenden Unterrichtsstunden könnten noch optimiert / verbessert werden?" Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 113 Figure 21: Results of the question: "Die Activity "Introduction of books" (Lesson 1) bietet den SchülerInnen ausreichend Informationen zu den Büchern, um ihnen die Wahl eines der drei Bücher zu ermöglichen." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 114 Figure 22: Results of the question: "Die Activity "Let's talk" (Lesson 3) ist dazu geeignet, SchülerInnen zu einem Austausch über das bisher Gelesene anzuregen." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 115 Figure 23: Results of the question: "Die jeweiligen Fragen der Activity "Book club discussion" (Lesson 5) geben den SchülerInnen ausreichende Möglichkeiten, ihre eigenen Ansichten und Gefühle zu den Büchern zu teilen." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018- 2019...... 116

Figure 24: Results of the question: "Das 100-point-project stellt eine für SchülerInnen motivierende Art der Leistungsbeurteilung dar." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 116 Figure 25: Results of the question: "Die Aufgabenstellungen der einzelnen 100-point-projects sind so gewählt, dass der Existenz verschiedener Lerntypen ausreichend Rechnung getragen wird." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 117 Figure 26: Results of the question: "Die Art der Präsentation des 100-point-projects lässt es zu, dass der Leistung jedes/jeder SchülerInnen ausreichend Aufmerksamkeit zukommt." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 118 Figure 27: Results of the question: "Die Art der Präsentation des 100-point-projects ermöglicht es SchülerInnen, ihre eigene Leistung im Vergleich mit jener der MitschülerInnen selbstreflektierend einzuschätzen." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 118 Figure 28: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "What am I wearing today?" Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 120 Figure 29: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "The problems with fast fashion". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 120 Figure 30: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "Introduction of books". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 121 Figure 31: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "Homework: A living wage". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 122 Figure 32: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "Introductory speaking activity". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 123 Figure 33: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "Describing a concept / Drawing a concept map". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 124 Figure 34: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "The true cost trailer". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 124 Figure 35: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "The Ecological Footprint (+ Homework)”. Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 125 Figure 36: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "If all the people all over the world ...". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 126 Figure 37: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "Let's talk about". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 127 Figure 38: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "The true cost vocabulary". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 127

Figure 39: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "The true cost". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 128 Figure 40: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "Writing a letter to Benjamin Powell". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 129 Figure 41: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "100-point- project". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 130 Figure 42: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "River pollution - Listening Activities". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 131 Figure 43: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "India's rivers and Austrian education". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 132 Figure 44: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "Book club discussion". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 133 Figure 45: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "The true cost of fast fashion". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 134 Figure 46: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "Alternatives to fast fashion - research activity". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 135 Figure 47: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "Who should pay the price?" Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 136 Figure 48: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "Alternatives to fast fashion - presenting the results (text type feedback)". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 137 Figure 49: Results of the question groups 6, 7 and 8 concerning the activity: "100-point- project - presenting the results". Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 138

III. List of Tables

Table 1: Results of the question: "Bitte beurteilen Sie die einzelnen Elemente danach, für wie wichtig Sie sie für ein gelungenes Reading Project halten, ..." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019...... 97

1 Introduction

Human concern for the environment as well as awareness concerning the fact that education will have to play a crucial role in preserving the environment has risen during the last decades. In an attempt to facilitate the development of environmental education and its implementation into all levels of both formal and informal education, the UNESCO established the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in 2002. The Decade’s purpose and main goal was to advance the reorientation of all aspects of education towards principles of sustainability in the quest for a more sustainable future.

Teaching and learning towards sustainability require teachers to support students in developing certain values and skills as well as to transmit the knowledge students need in order to live a life adhering to the principles of sustainability. The interdisciplinary nature of ESD suggests that each school subject can contribute to the development of those prerequisites for sustainability. This diploma thesis focuses on the question how teaching and learning towards sustainability can be implemented into the EFL classroom, particularly by using Young Adult Literature. A reading project making use of YAL and dealing with the environmental impact of the fast fashion industry was designed.

The study conducted in the course of this diploma thesis aimed at exploring to what extent EFL teachers consider the EFL classroom as a suitable environment for teaching towards sustainability, to what extent they believe that Young Adult Literature is a suitable tool for teaching towards sustainability in the EFL classroom and how the teachers evaluate the reading project. The received feedback on the reading project could subsequently be used in order to optimize the project. An online questionnaire was used for collecting the data.

This diploma thesis consists of seven chapters. In the second chapter, an overview of the scientific discourse and existing literature on the topics of implementing sustainability into education as well as the suitability of the EFL classroom and of Young Adult Literature for teaching and learning towards sustainability is provided. Chapter 3 is dedicated to explaining the rationale and didactic considerations underlying the reading project which is put forward in this thesis. In the fourth chapter, the methodology of the research conducted in the course of this diploma thesis is elaborated on. Then, the findings of the study are presented in chapter 5 and discussed in chapter 6. Finally, a summary of the thesis’ main findings is provided in chapter 7.

2 Literature Review

2.1 Education for Sustainable Development

According to the United Nations’ Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, greenhouse gas emissions caused by humankind’s unsustainable actions might lead to the destruction of life on planet Earth within the next millennium (cf. Gadotti n.d.: 22). That is only one of many reasons as to why education concerning sustainability should play a vital role in education worldwide. For the last decades, fostering economic growth has been one of the main purposes of education in many parts of the world (cf. Gadotti n.d.) and it can now be seen that this approach to education has supported the development and maintenance of issues such as environmental degradation and social injustice (cf. UNESCO 2012, online). Moacir Gadotti (n.d.), who was part of the group of experts who designed the Earth Charter and belongs to the reference group of the UN’s Decade of Sustainable Devlopment, goes so far as to say that “education that has been developing in the world up to now can be considered more as part of the sustainable development’s problem than part of the solution” (p. 14). He further claims that environmental preservation is impossible without ecological awareness, which in turn is dependent on education (cf. Gadotti 2010: 205).

There is wide-spread consensus that education paradigms have to be changed in order for them to accommodate education for sustainability. According to Wright and Pullen (2007), the UNESCO claimed in 1997 that, “education, in short, is humanity’s best hope and most effective means in the quest to achieve sustainable development” (p. 78). In this section, an attempt will be made at defining sustainability; then, milestones regarding human concern for the environment and the development of Education for Sustainable Development will be presented. Following a detailed explanation of the concept of ESD, the last part of this section will deal with the occurrence of ESD in Austria and will show, by the means of drawing on the Austrian curriculum and the guidelines of the standardized oral A-levels, that it is justified to argue in favor of implementing ESD into Austrian classrooms.

2.1.1 Sustainability – defining the term

One of the earliest descriptions of the concept of sustainability was attempted by the Brundland Commission report in 1987, according to which sustainability is development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (United Nations 1987, online). However, the etymological origin of the word “sustainability” – which stems from the Latin “sustinere”, meaning “endure, hold up or support” – supports a definition tackling the concept from a different angle: namely, sustainability as “a long lasting or enduring practice that can go on endlessly” (Arngart Behrendt 2017: 5). Considering this definition, it becomes evident that sustainability refers to more than humankind being able to fulfill their own needs. In fact, Nickerson (2003) argues that “ensuring a planet that is hospitable to future generations may mean settling for one that serves less than optimally our current wants and desires. This trade is one we appear to find extraordinarily difficult to make” (p. 217), shedding light on the fact that in order for sustainable development to take place, it might be necessary for humankind to reflect on their wants and desires with regard to which of them actually need to be fulfilled in contrast to those which are merely artificial in the sense that they were created in order to sustain an economic system which is unsustainable in itself. The UNESCO (2012) supports this view by stating that the “sustainability paradigm is a major change from the previous paradigm of economic development with its damaging social and environmental consequences” (section: What is Sustainable Development?). However, economic considerations are still prevalent in a number of descriptions of sustainability as well as sustainable development. It is stated in one of the Sourcebooks for Education for Sustainable Development provided by UNESCO (2012) that sustainability is made up of three different spheres – namely, the environment, society and economy – all of which have to be taken into account when it comes to sustainability programmes.

An explanation of sustainability which seems to be in accordance with the word’s etymological origin is provided by Herman Daly (1989). He insists that sustainability can only be achieved if humankind consumes fewer renewable resources than the planet is able to generate and if pollution levels are kept low enough for the environment to be able to compensate for the pollution by making use of its assimilative capacity. This is the definition this thesis will work with and any further argumentations and discussions will be based on.

However, it is worth noting that a variety of more holistic definitions have emerged in recent years. For example, Brandão (2008) provides another extensive definition of sustainability, doing justice to the complexity of the concept by stating that it is

opposed to everything that suggests unbalance, competition, conﬂict, greed, individualism, domination, destruction, expropriation and undue and unbalanced material acquisition, regarding change and social transformation of society or environment. So in the most generous and widest way, sustainability means a new egalitarian way, a free, fair, inclusive, and solidarity way to get people together in order to build their social living world at the same time that they handle, manage or transform the natural sustainable environments where they live and on which they depend to live and be together. (136)

This definition is supported by Moacir Gadotti (2010), who acknowledges that sustainability is a complex concept but is in its essence aiming at a balance between humans and the environment. He promotes a more holistic and spiritual view of the concept of sustainability, arguing that the importance of sustainability exceeds both the economic as well as the environmental dimensions and encompasses individuals finding a balance between the universe and themselves (cf. Gadotti 2010: 204). By stating that sustainability “refers itself to the discussion of who we are, where we came from and where we are going to, as human beings” (Gadotti n.d.: 8), he emphasizes the interconnectedness between human beings and their environment.

2.1.2 Human concern for the environment – historical overview

Since the establishment of the Club of Rome in 1968, there have been various milestones regarding humanity’s attempts at raising awareness and creating frameworks for environmental preservation and sustainable development. In this section, the most important milestones will be presented and discussed with regard to the significance they place on education when it comes to achieving sustainability: The Brundtland Report, the Earth Summit with Agenda 21, the World Summit in Johannesburg in 2002 and the Millennium Development Goals will be presented as they are significant milestones in humanity’s development towards acknowledging the importance of education for achieving sustainability. Those milestones ultimately led to the emergence of Education for Sustainable Development, a concept which will be discussed subsequently.

2.1.2.1 The Brundtland Report

Concerns about the consequences of humanity’s unsustainable behaviour dates back to at least 1968, when the Club of Rome was established. The members, who were made up of scientists as well as economists, predicted that the survival of the human species might be put on the line if humans continue their way of living and by doing so cross a certain threshold after which all efforts to save life on our planet will be in vain. In 1993, the United Nations founded the Global Commission on Environment and Development, which published a report called Our Common Future, also known as Brundtland Report, in 1987 (cf. Gadotti n.d.: 6-7). It was in this report that the term “sustainable development” was first coined. The Brundtland Report called for global cooperation in order to deal with a variety of challenges connected to sustainability, such as food security, renewable energy or the challenges growing cities are faced with. The report puts emphasis on the role education will have to play in ensuring a sustainable future by stressing that educational institutions are supposed to provide a basis for humanity’s sustainable future (cf. United Nations 1987). Education, institutional development and law enforcement are named as crucial factors in the endeavor to make humans take into account the world’s common interest when choosing their actions and behaviors (United Nations 1987: 43). Although the Brundtland Report offers a wide variety of suggestions concerning different aspects of sustainable development, the focus is clearly not laid on aspects related to education.

2.1.2.2 The Earth Summit

In 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as Earth Summit, was held in Rio de Janeiro, the result of which was a document called Agenda 21. The extensive document names equality and justice among generations, nations and cultures as goals of sustainable development (cf. Agenda 21 1992). It consists of 40 chapters which deal with varying aspects of sustainability. The document puts emphasis on the importance of education in order to achieve sustainable development by mentioning education in each of its 40 chapters. This undeniably shows the significance Agenda 21 places upon education in a quest for a better and more sustainable future. In chapter 36, the role education will have to play is laid out in more detail: The authors claim that education is a prerequisite necessary for a change in attitude and behavior to take place (Agenda 21 1992: 329). One of the goals defined in chapter 36 is the integration of concepts related to sustainability into all

educational programmes and to make education concerning sustainability accessible to all demographic groups, covering children going to primary school as well as adults. A variety of measures are listed which will have to be adopted in order for the goals to be achieved, such as implementing environmental and developmental education into all levels of the education system as well as revising curricula in order to incorporate a multidisciplinary approach which allows for environmental education to take place (cf. Agenda 21 1992: 333).

2.1.2.3 The World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg 2002

According to Gadotti (n.d.), the consensus which was reached at the UN conference in Johannesburg in 2002 was that the measures which had been established in the previous years had failed. He claims that with regard to climate change humanity has already trespassed the threshold described by the Club of Rome in 1968 (c.f. Gadotti n.d.: 6-7). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which was held in 2006 and 2007 affirmed this view by discussing the effects climate change was having on the entire planet and thus confirming that more needed to be done if ensuring the future of planet Earth was to be accomplished. At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, governments agreed to take the actions necessary in order to preserve life on Earth, amongst other things by reorienting “national education systems to a vision of sustainability that links economic well-being with respect for cultural diversity, the Earth and its resources” (UNESCO 2007: 6).

2.1.2.4 Millennium Development Goals

In 2000, the leaders of 189 countries approved the Millennium Declaration, which led to the development of eight measurable objectives that were supposed to be achieved by 2015. While all of the objectives which were agreed upon, such as the eradication of poverty and hunger or the achievement of universal primary education, are indirectly linked to values of sustainability, the seventh goal – namely “to ensure environmental sustainability” (United Nations 2008b, online) – draws explicit attention to the topic of sustainable development. A 2008 report on the preliminary results with regard to this specific goal stated that especially in terms of those parts of the world’s population which are poor and thus suffer even more from environmental crises, more measures will have to be taken in order to achieve the objective

(cf. United Nations 2008a, online). An extensive number of measures are listed; however, none of them explicitly refer to educational programmes or institutions.

2.1.3 ESD – Education for Sustainable Development

In order to fully understand the scope and objectives of the UNESCOS’s Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, it is first necessary to take a closer look at the concept of Education for Sustainable Development, or ESD. First, the establishment of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development by the UNESCO will be discussed. Then, the goals of ESD will be elaborated on, after which the EU’s stance on ESD as well as Austria’s implementation scheme will be presented. Next, arguments will be made in favor of implementing ESD into all spheres of education. Finally, ESD will be discussed with regard to its relationship to the Austrian curriculum and the Austrian standardized A-levels. The aim of this section is to provide an understanding of the concept of ESD as well as its implications and the role it is supposed to play in the Austrian education system.

2.1.3.1 The UNESCO Decade of Education for Sustainable Development

In December 2002, the United Nations General Assembly brought forward Resolution n. 57/ 254, by the means of which the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, or ESD, was established (cf. Gadotti n.d.: 3). The resolution called for the UNESCO to design a scheme as to how to implement the promotion of values associated with sustainability into educational systems. According to Gadotti (n.d.), the Decade can be seen as an opportunity to live up to the educational goals of Agenda 21, which were presented in the Agenda’s 36st chapter (cf. n.d.: 19). In the Decade’s main document it is argued that its main goal is to “integrate the values inherent in sustainable development into all aspects of learning to encourage changes in behavior that allow for a more sustainable and just society for all” (UNESCO 2005c: 5).

The reasons for implementing the Decade which were adduced by UNESCO include the facts that education can be seen as a “motor for change” (UNESCO 2005b, online) and that, according to UNESCO’s Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura, “education – in all its forms and at all levels – is not only an end in itself but is also one of the most powerful instruments

we have for bringing about the changes required to achieve sustainable development" (as cited in UNESCO 2005b, online).

2.1.3.2 The goals of ESD

According to the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development’s International Implementation Scheme provided by UNESCO (2005a), the challenge of ESD is “educating to deal with complex issues that threaten planetary sustainability” (p. 7). ESD is regarded as an “overarching paradigm” (UNESCO 2012, online) which supports the goal of mainstreaming education on sustainability matters into all aspects and disciplines of education, irrespective of whether the education in question is formal, non-formal or informal. Education is seen as a means for bringing about a shift in human attitudes and behaviors, enabling the emergence of a more sustainable and just society (cf. UNESCO 2007: 5).

ESD is “far more than teaching knowledge and principles related to sustainability” (UNESCO 2012, online) and is instead concerned with “transferable skills, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, advocacy and conflict-resolution” (UNESCO, 2014: 36), all of which are needed in order to solve future problems, some of which might not be predictable from the given moment of time and can thus not be prepared for by ways of transmitting the knowledge and skills humanity currently operates with.

In the course of the Sustainable Development Educational Panel the view was advocated that ESD’s purpose is to enable people to individually as well as collectively partake in decision- making processes (cf. Stephen Sterling 1998). Moreover, ESD is thought of as a means to support individual persons in acting responsibly and questioning the values on which decisions are based (cf. UNESCO 2009: 1). ESD must be thought of as an interdisciplinary approach to education which takes local needs into account while acknowledging the interconnectedness of local actions and global developments (cf. UNESCO 2007: 6).

2.1.3.3 EU recommendation on ESD

In November 2010, the Council of the European Union came together in the form of the 3046th Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council meeting in order to reach conclusions on the EU’s stance on ESD. In the opening statement of the conclusion, the Council states the

21st century has brought with it a variety of challenges the EU will have to face, such as the declination of energy and water resources, a decline in biodiversity as well as the possibility of insecurities concerning food supply. As a consequence, it is essential for all citizens of the EU to be prepared in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes to deal with complex challenges they will encounter in the future (cf. Council of the European Union 2010: 2). The Council acknowledges the significance of ESD by explicitly stating that it “is essential for the achievement of a sustainable society and is therefore desirable at all levels of formal education and training, as well as in non-formal and informal learning” (Council 2010: 3). It recommends for ESD to be mainstreamed into all levels of education so as to equip citizens with the competences required for making informed choices leading to a sustainable society (cf. Council 2010: 3). By stating that ESD is “not a stand-alone subject, but more a set of underlying principles and values such as justice, equity, tolerance, sufficiency and responsibility” (Council 2010: 4), the Council’s document makes evident that the EU is aware of the wide scope and manifold implications of ESD. The EU’s official recommendation invites member states to mainstream ESD into their curricula and to create and introduce interdisciplinary approaches which support the engagement with sustainability. Moreover, member states are requested to provide teachers as well as school staff and school leaders with the skills and awareness necessary in order to implement ESD into their teaching and management (cf. Council 2010: 5). It can thus be argued that the EU is clearly in favor of the concept of ESD and supports the ideas underlying the UNESCO’s Decade.

2.1.3.4 Austrian Strategy for Education for Sustainable Development

In Austria, eight fields of action which ESD should focus on have been identified in an Österreichische Strategie zur Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung [Austrian Strategy for ESD], namely: Equality between genders, health promotion, environment protection, rural development, peace and humanitarian safety, sustainable consumption, cultural diversity and sustainable urban development (cf. Österreichische Strategie 2008: 2). It has to be noted that all of the different aspects mentioned above have to be regarded as interwoven and sharing strong connections to each other. The purpose of the Austrian Strategy for ESD is to support a shift of awareness in students as well as teachers and to connect different agents who are part of this process (cf. Österreichische Strategie 2008: 3). According to the Strategie, one of the main challenges BNE still faces in Austria is that it is thought of as an additional offer which should be included in the curriculum instead of as a perspective in accordance with which 13

education should be subjected to a process of fundamental rethinking (cf. Österreichische Strategie 2008: 5).

In order to implement ESD in Austria, the Strategie proposes a variety of measures which have been developed by the UNESCO. Among these measures is the development of visions and general principles, the establishment of ESD on all levels of education and the promotion of ESD-related skills and competences in teachers (cf. Österreichische Strategie 2008: 8). With regard to the latter, according to the Strategie, ESD should be implemented into educational modules in teacher training and advanced training; moreover, ESD should be included in national curricula and training plans; also, textbooks and lesson materials focusing on ESD should be made available (cf. Österreichische Strategie 2008: 9). Designing lesson materials which take into account sustainability, such as the Reading Project which was designed in the context of this diploma thesis, and making them available to the general public can thus be seen as a vital contribution to establishing an engagement with sustainability issues in Austrian schools.

2.1.3.5 A plea for implementing ESD

Considering the challenges and threats humankind will inevitably have to face in the future, especially if current trends and behaviors are continued, it comes as no surprise that organizations such as the UNESCO have put emphasis on the importance of sustainability in general and of Education for Sustainable Development in particular. As early as in 1976, the UNESCO-UNEP stated that ecological education should,

be integrated into the whole system of formal education at all levels to provide the necessary knowledge, understanding, values and skills needed by the general public and many occupational groups, for their participation in devising solutions to environmental questions (1976: 12).

It becomes evident that, according to the UNESCO, the general public will have to play a vital role in bringing about the change needed in order for humanity’s actions to be oriented towards values of sustainability. Education is seen as the means by which to guarantee that the general public is equipped with the values, knowledge and skills which are foundational to being able to think and act sustainably.

The significance of ESD as a means of achieving sustainability is emphasized by Gadotti (n.d.) in his statement that “sustainability is a goal of humanity that points towards a road to a 14

better future. If sustainability is this route, education for sustainable development is the how, the mean that will conduct us to this trip to the future” (p. 21). He goes on to specify this assertion by refraining from the use of imagery and stating explicitly that “a culture of sustainability presumes a pedagogy of sustainability” (p. 16), thus pointing out that ESD is an indispensable factor in the quest for sustainability. In a similar vein, he argues that ecological awareness is the prerequisite for environmental preservation and can only be achieved via education (cf. Gadotti 2010: 205). Similar claims have been made by a variety of institutions and individuals. For example, the Österreichische Strategie zur Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung [Austrian strategy for ESD] adopts this view by asserting that ESD is both a prerequisite and vital part of sustainable development (cf. Österreichische Strategie 2008: 3). The fact that ESD plays a key role in achieving a higher level of sustainable thinking and acting among humanity seems to be well established in theory.

The reasons as to why education is essential when it comes to promoting values of sustainability are manifold. It can be argued that children and teenagers spend a significant proportion of their time being subjected to formal education and thus their values and beliefs are influenced and partly shaped by the system of education they are confronted with. Another argument in favor of making the connection between sustainability and education is the holism of the purpose of education. It was Thakur Singh Powdyel, Bhutan’s former Minister of Education, who said that “education should be more than academic attainment, it should be about expanding children’s minds and teaching what it is to be human” (as cited in UNESCO 2014: 90). Building a relationship with the environment and learning how to partake in its preservation can be considered as part of “what it is to be human” and thus as a topic area which should be dealt with in the context of formal as well as informal education.

2.1.4 ESD in the Austrian Curriculum and the Austrian standardized A-levels

This section deals with the question to what extent the measures related to ESD have been implemented in Austria and, in more general terms, how much value is placed on Education for Sustainable Development in Austrian education. The Austrian curriculum as well as the guidelines for the standardized A-levels will be analyzed with regard to the extent to which they refer to and put emphasis on ESD. The question in how far ESD has been implemented into those areas is significant because whether or not EFL teachers are able to include ESD in

their teaching strongly depends on structural and time-related circumstances, which in turn are dependent on factors such as national and international frameworks and documents. In the following, it will be shown that ESD, to some degree, has its place within the Austrian educational system. Thus, an engagement with topics of sustainability in the context of all school subjects, including EFL, is legitimized and necessary, and should be allowed for structurally.

2.1.4.1 The Austrian Curriculum

As has been found by UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education (UNESCO 2014), a wide range of countries refer to sustainability as one of the goals of education and, moreover, there is a wide-spread occurrence of topics of sustainability and environmentalism in national curricula (cf. 2014: 84). According to UNESCO materials, when analyzing a curriculum for content related to sustainability it is advisable to assign individual items to one of three categories, namely the categories of sustainability, of “foundational to sustainability” or “unrelated to sustainability” (cf. UNESCO 2012, online). The Austrian curriculum offers a wide variety of links to sustainability, some of which can be attributed to the category of items which are foundational to sustainability and some of which are explicitly referring to sustainability issues.

The legal mission The fact that the Austrian curriculum places value on aspects of sustainability becomes obvious when examining the legal mission stated in the section describing the educational aim of school education in Austria, according to which pupils’ willingness for critical thinking and reflection as well as their developmental process enabling them to adopt a social and positive way of living should be enhanced (cf. RIS 2018, online). Being able to reflect and think critically is one of the main prerequisites necessary in order to lead a sustainable life and meet future challenges connected to sustainability issues.

The general outline The section covering the curriculum’s general outline states that current educational processes need to be viewed in relation to rapid societal changes, especially in the areas of “culture, science, demographics, economy, technology, environment and law” (RIS 2018, online). It is this context in which the environmental aspect is first mentioned explicitly in the curriculum. The section goes on to say that due to the globalized economic system and diverse global 16

conflicts and crises, new challenges have arisen in various areas such as gender equality or distributional justice. According to the curriculum, those challenges require attributes such as open-mindedness, tolerance as well as abilities which enable individuals to participate in discursive practices. The aspects of environmentalism and sustainability are not mentioned explicitly in this section of the curriculum; however, questions concerning sustainability undoubtedly belong to the set of challenges connected to economic globalization as well as conflicts and global crises which are described in the curriculum’s text.

In another part of the curriculum’s general outline, it is stated that education should allow for in-depth involvement with ethical and moral aspects of life, enabling pupils to build autonomous and meaningful lives for themselves (cf. RIS 2018, online). According to Gadotti (2010), in order to be meaningful to students, the content of education needs to be meaningful in terms of the wellbeing of the entire planet (cf. 2010: 205). Indeed, hardly anything can be considered as more meaningful than the preservation of nature, the human race and all living things on Earth. It can thus be argued that the curriculum referring to students’ lives as supposed to be “meaningful” can be interpreted as a plea for pupils being enabled to lead lives which are in line with ideas and objectives related to sustainability.

Areas of responsibility The curriculum’s general outline is followed by a list and explanations of areas of responsibility. One of those areas which should be covered by formal education is the transfer of knowledge and competences, about which the curriculum notes that students should be enabled to acquire knowledge independently and to question knowledge critically (cf. RIS 2018, online). Again, these are skills which are essential to identifying and coping with environmental issues and their multifaceted sources. In this context, the curriculum states that,

Schülerinnen und Schüler sollen sich in altersadäquater Form mit Problemstellungen auseinandersetzen, Gegebenheiten kritisch hinterfragen, Probleme erkennen und definieren, Lösungswege eigenständig suchen und ihr eigenes Handeln kritisch betrachten.

[Students are supposed to deal with problems in an age-appropriate manner, to critically question given conditions, detect and define problems, search for solutions independently and critically reflect on their own actions.] (RIS 2018, online)

All those skills and competences are clearly foundational to envisioning and adopting a sustainable lifestyle. In order to be able to contribute to a more sustainable future, students need to learn how to deal with complex problems, question the circumstances which have created those problems and find creative solutions by the means of critically reflecting the 17

way they themselves behave and society operates. The curriculum also puts emphasis on the importance of so-called “dynamic skills” (RIS 2018, online), such as being able to take responsibility, to cooperate, to develop initiatives and to participate in the shaping of social reality. Enabling students to acquire those dynamic skills is equaled with preparing them for situations in which they will have to develop new procedures of solutions in order to cope with challenges. As has been discussed earlier in this thesis, being unable to rely on pre- prepared solutions in the context of dealing with unprecedented challenges is undoubtedly part of what young generations of learners will be faced with throughout their lives, especially in terms of environmental challenges which will require creative solutions supporting sustainability.

Educational domains It is in the curriculum’s section defining relevant educational domains that environmental education is mentioned explicitly for the first time as one of the educational principles education should be based on. The elaboration on educational domains then goes on to include the domain “Mensch und Gesellschaft” [Humans and society], a part of which is, according to the curriculum, understanding causal relations underlying society in order to be able to live autonomously and consciously as well as to partake in societal tasks which need to be done cooperatively (cf. RIS 2018, online). With regard to sustainable development, it is crucial for individuals to be able to comprehend causal relations, meaning that the explanation of the domain “Mensch und Gesellschaft” describes competences highly relevant to sustainability. This is especially true for the next part of the domain’s description, in which it is argued that education should raise students’ awareness with regard to the fact that social phenomena have been constructed by humans and that thus individuals are able to significantly influence societal developments. Only if pupils are made aware of their own potential to change given circumstances and thus of the relevance of their own choices, will they feel the need to change their own patterns of behavior in order to contribute to sustainable development. The connection between the domain “Mensch und Gesellschaft” and education for sustainability becomes even more obvious in the final part of the domain’s description, as the aspects of “Umweltbewusstsein” [Ecological awareness] and “ökologische Nachhaltigkeit” [Ecological sustainability] are named explicitly as crucial values which should play a significant role in education (cf. RIS 2018, online).

Another educational domain which establishes an explicit connection to sustainability is the domain “Gesundheit und Bewegung” [Health and exercise], by stating that “Die Schülerinnen

und Schüler sind zu unterstützen, einen gesundheitsbewussten und gegenüber der Umwelt und Mitwelt verantwortlichen Lebensstil zu entwickeln.“ [Students must be supported in adopting a lifestyle which is health-conscious and responsible towards nature and their social environment.] (RIS 2018, online, section: Erster Teil, Allgemeines Bildungsziel). If students are aware of their own body’s needs and able to reflect on the fact that their human body is just as much a part of nature and dependent on it as any other animal’s body, their relationship with nature is potentially strengthened. Moreover, acknowledging the responsibility of each individual towards the environment is a process which can get under way by first acknowledging that each individual is responsible for their own body and health. Consequently, there is a strong connection between health education and education for sustainable development, as both areas of education deal with the fact that individual behavior manifests itself in concrete consequences for living organisms, whether it is a human body, an entire ecosystem or the environment as a whole.

Another section in which an important prerequisite for sustainable behavior is named is the section of the curriculum dedicated to general didactic principles; more precisely in the context of describing the principle “Stärken von Selbsttätigkeit und Eigenverantwortung” [Increasing autonomy and personal responsibility] (RIS 2018, online). It is argued that pupils need to be enabled to think critically and autonomously and to develop their own value systems and beliefs (cf. RIS 2018, online), which is precisely what education for sustainable development tries to achieve. Moreover, the Austrian curriculum refers to a variety of skills and competences which are related to 21st century skills connected to sustainability, such as “self-management, self-directed learning, and ability to collaborate and to take responsibility” (Ananiadou and Claro 2009: 24).

Conclusion As has been shown, there are a variety of items in the curriculum which are related to sustainability or describe prerequisites which are foundational to sustainability. However, there seem to be relatively few specific references to sustainability or environmental education. More will need to be done in order to ensure that the Austrian curriculum does justice to the importance of sustainability-related skills, values and perspectives. It is not only stated in the Österreichische Strategie zur Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung that ESD needs to be considered when it comes to curricula design (cf. 2008: 9), but also underpinned by the UNESCO in its statement that Ecological education is supposed to be implemented throughout the entire educational system, meaning that it should play a vital role at all levels

of formal education (cf. 1976: 12). The Austrian curriculum is yet to meet its responsibility of ensuring that this implementation takes place.

2.1.4.2 Standardized A-levels

When taking a closer look at the subject areas which, according to the BMBF, are relevant to the oral part of the standardized A-levels, there are a significant number of subject areas which are related to sustainability and Education for Sustainable Development, especially among the subject areas which are used for students who have been learning English for eight years when they attempt their A-levels (cf. Bundesministerium für Bildung und Frauen [BMBF] 2013: 13). Almost all of the subject areas could potentially be considered from the perspective of sustainability – for example, the subject area “Ernährung, Gesundheit und soziale Absicherung” [nutrition, health and social security] (BMBF 2013: 13) could be used in order to investigate food scarcity, health issues related to the unsustainable use of pesticides and fertilizers or the topic of global injustice in terms of food distribution. In a similar manner, the subject area “Arbeitswelt (inkl. übernationale und globale Aspekte)” [world of employment, including transnational and global aspects] (BMBF 2013: 13) could serve as the basis for discussing phenomena such as exploitation, sweatshops or the unsustainable quality inherent in global labor division. It can be argued that links can be established between BNE and a variety of the other subject areas, such as “Freizeitverhalten“ [leisure behaviour], “Tradition und Wandel“ [tradition and transformation], “Transport und Tourismus“ [transport and tourism], “Medien“ [media], “Moderne Technologien“ [modern technologies], “Erwachsenwerden und Identitätsfindung (inkl. Rollen und Vorbilder, nationale Identität…)” [Growing up and formation of identity, including social roles, role models and national identities], “Politik und Institutionen des öffentlichen Lebens” [politics and public institutions] and “Regeln, Vorschriften, Gesetze“ [rules, regulations and laws] (BMBF 2013: 13). All these subject areas could easily be approached with regard to how they are connected to sustainability and sustainable development.

The three subject areas which are arguably best suited to be dealt with in terms of their sustainability dimension are “Konsumgesellschaft” [consumer society], “Natur und Umwelt” [nature and environment] and “Die globalisierte Welt” [Globalised world] (BMBF 2013: 13), as they are the subject areas which are most directly connected to aspects of sustainability. The subject area “Natur und Umwelt” speaks for itself – clearly, a wide variety of issues

connected to sustainability can be discussed within this subject area. The topics of consumption and globalization are both also strongly related to themes of sustainability, as individual and societal consumption patterns contribute crucially to multiple environmental as well as social problems, and globalization plays a vital role in shifting modes of consumption, global injustice, overexploitation of natural resources and other related phenomena. Another subject area which might not be regarded as directly connected to sustainability by most individuals but still needs to be mentioned in the context of this diploma thesis is that of “Mode und Trends” [fashion and trends] (BMBF 2013: 13). The Reading Project which will be examined later in this thesis focuses on the negative influence the fast fashion industry and unsustainable production, distribution and disposal of clothing has on the environment as well as on human beings in different parts of the world. Thus, it can be argued that the Reading Project put forward in this thesis creates a link between a variety of subject areas of the standardized oral A-levels, looking at the subject area “Mode und Trends” from a perspective centered on sustainability and sustainable development.

As has been shown, there are strong connections between the topic areas which are relevant for the Austrian standardized A-levels and content areas related to sustainability. The conclusion which can be drawn is that it makes sense to have students engage with topics of environmental sustainability, as gaining knowledge on the content as well as the language they need in order to express their ideas on sustainability might be helpful during their A-level examinations.

2.2 Teaching and learning towards sustainability

In this section, an attempt will be made at answering the question as to how teaching and learning sustainability can take place. Before discussing the implementation of ESD into the EFL classroom in section 3, it is first necessary to discuss how sustainability can be taught and learnt in general. For this purpose, the following section first deals with the values, knowledge and skills which students need to acquire in order to be able do think and act in accordance with the concept of sustainability. Then, didactic principles which should underly teaching towards sustainability and allow for teaching towards the values, skills and knowledge of sustainability will be presented. Finally, limitations to teaching towards sustainability will be discussed.

2.2.1 Values, knowledge and skills for sustainability

In order to make an attempt at answering the question how sustainability can be taught in general as well as in the EFL classroom and via the use of Young Adult Literature, it is first necessary to discuss the values and skills that educational modules focusing on sustainability should support students in acquiring. Taking into consideration the question which values, knowledge and skills should be focused on in teaching towards sustainability is crucial in the context of this thesis for two reasons: Firstly, in designing educational modules aimed at teaching towards sustainability, it is essential to consider the values and skills which are supposed to be covered in order to be able to design the lessons accordingly. And secondly, the question as to whether the EFL classroom constitutes a suitable environment for teaching towards sustainability, ultimately, implies the question whether the values, areas of knowledge and skills which are presented in this section can be taught in the EFL classroom. It should be noted that, as there is a wide range of values, knowledge and skills which are associated with the ability to adopt a sustainable lifestyle, it can be considered as impossible to provide an exhaustive list of what is needed for sustainability. In the following, an overview over important values, knowledge and skills related to sustainability is provided.

2.2.1.1 Values of sustainability

If educational modules on sustainability and environmental issues are to translate into altered mindsets and behaviour of students, it is imperative that the students’ systems of beliefs and values are considered to an equal extent as their knowledge and skills. The values individuals or societies as a whole hold have a strong influence on the kind of reality which is created. According to the Sourcebook for ESD, values influence “our worldview, how we treat others, how we view ourselves, our expectations of the government, and our use or abuse of natural resources” (UNESCO 2012, online). The influence values have on the construction of reality is tangible on an individual, personal as well as on a societal level, which can be seen from the fact that values do not only play a significant role in individual human’s daily decisions but also, for example, in the creation of national or international legislation (cf. UNESCO 2012, online). There is a wide variety of values connected to sustainability; which of those values should be targeted by any specific educational module needs to be decided on a case- by-case basis.

With regard to values related to sustainability, the so-called Earth Charter constitutes a framework which provides helpful insights into the nature of values for sustainability. The Earth Charter, which is a “product of a decade long worldwide, cross-cultural, civil society dialogue on common goals and shared values” (UNESCO 2005c: 16) and was launched in 2000, seeks to provide an ethical framework on how sustainability can be achieved. The principles and values put forward in the Earth Charter are divided into four categories. Below each of the categories is presented and explained briefly.

I. RESPECT AND CARE FOR THE COMMUNITY OF LIFE

Values which are mentioned in this section are respect for the diversity and interdependence of all forms of life on Earth. Furthermore, the section promotes the idea of individuals having the responsibility to protect the environment from being harmed by the use of “understanding, compassion and love” (Earth Charter 2000: 2). It further mentions the significance of human rights, fundamental freedoms and social as well as economic justice, all of which should be ensured by creating and maintaining democratic, participatory societies.

II. ECOLOGICAL INTEGRITY

In this section, it is made clear that humans should value and acknowledge the importance of “biological diversity and the natural processes that sustain life” (Earth Charter 2000: 2) and that environmental protection should be made a priority. It is stated in the Earth Charter that, when actions are taken, “cumulative, long-term, indirect, long distance, and global consequences” (2000: 2) have to be considered. When there is uncertainty concerning the outcome of specific human actions, it is advised to take a “precautionary approach” (2000: 2).

III. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE

This section states that in order for sustainability to be possible, equality and equity as well as the end of discrimination and poverty need to be achieved. It is argued that it is necessary to “eliminate discrimination in all its forms, such as that based on race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, religion, language, and national, ethnic or social origin” (Earth Charter 2000: 3) and to enable all individuals, irrespective of where they live, to have access to what they need in order to fulfil their human needs.

V. IV. DEMOCRACY, NONVIOLENCE, AND PEACE

The idea put forward in this section is that democracy, transparency and participation are important prerequisites for a sustainable society. Other values mentioned in this section are freedom of opinion and speech, tolerance, cooperation and solidarity, as well as respect for all living beings (cf. Earth Charter 2000: 3-4).

In this chart, the values which are promoted in the Earth Charter most prominently are listed.

I. II. III. VI. Respect for the Acknowledging the Equality and equity, Democracy diversity and importance of irrespective of interconnectedness of biological diversity gender, race, etc. all living beings Understanding, Foresightedness End of Peace compassion and love discrimination and poverty Human rights and Precaution Social security Political transparency fundamental and accountability freedoms Social and economic Liability for causing Compassion Political participation justice environmental harm Democracy and Fair distribution of Freedom of opinion participation wealth and expression, etc. Human dignity, Respect for all living bodily health and beings spiritual well-being Tolerance, solidarity

and cooperation

As becomes obvious when looking at the values suggested by the Earth Charter, values for sustainability are not only concerned with values which are related to ecological and environmental sustainability in a direct, obvious way, but also with values such as equality and justice as well as other values which are foundational for a democratic and peaceful 24

society. In the second section, values such as an interconnectedness with nature and future generations as well as humility in the face of biological diversity are put forward, even though they are not named explicitly. The focus is laid on the values of equality and equity in the third section. It is imperative for students to internalize the realisation that all human beings deserve equality, equity and justice. They need to be able to comprehend why it matters if their consumption habits have consequences for people living in other parts of the world as the well-being of all human beings is of equal importance.

The values of sustainability as depicted in the Earth Charter are similar to those named by Gadotti (n.d.), who seems to take a holistic approach to sustainability and thus considers a transformation of values to be of major importance (cf. n.d.: 22). He discusses the concept of “planetary citizenship”, which is “an expression that was adopted to express a group of principles, values, attitudes and habits that show a new perception of the Earth as a single community” (p. 16) and claims that one of the aims of education should be to prepare students for planetary citizenship. He further claims that in order to be able to lead a sustainable life, it is necessary to think globally, be connected to the planet on an emotional level, be able to feel empathy towards others and place value on concepts such as simplicity, quietness and inner peace (cf. n.d.: 22).

2.2.1.2 Knowledge for sustainability

As has been argued in the previous chapter, the sustainability-related challenges which future generations will be faced with will not be solvable by merely employing the knowledge humanity is already equipped with (cf. UNESCO 2012, online). Unprecedented challenges will require the creative handling of existing knowledge as well as the construction and ongoing development of new bodies of knowledge. Furthermore, as the world is constantly changing, so are relevant pieces of information. Knowledge has become fluent and the internet allows for easy acquisition of a wide range of information. In combination, these factors lead to the fact that, in the context of educational modules, the transmission of specific knowledge can be considered as less relevant than that of values, skills and competences. Instead of providing students with knowledge, it makes more sense to support them in learning how to obtain and evaluate information, which, as will be discussed in the next section, is one area of skills of the 21st century skills. Which knowledge is transferred in specific educational modules depends strongly on the concrete scope and aim of the

respective module and which pieces of information the students need in order to complete the tasks. However, there are certain concepts and facts students should be familiar with in order to be able to think and act sustainably.

In the Sourcebook for Education for Sustainable Development, it is stated that

people need basic knowledge from the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities to understand the principles of sustainable development, how they can be implemented, the values involved, and the ramifications of their implementation (UNESCO 2012, online).

This becomes evident when correlating the knowledge required for sustainability to the values illustrated in the previous section. For example, in order to fully understand the value of democratic participation, students need to be aware of and informed on the mechanisms of democracy and, on a more general level, on different systems of government and their respective advantages and disadvantages. In a similar vein, students need to have a certain degree of biological knowledge in order to understand the value of “biological diversity and the natural processes that sustain life” (Earth Charter 2000: 2), as mentioned in the Earth Charter.

One important argument which is made in the document “Qualitätskriterien für BNE- Schulen” [Criteria of quality for ESD-schools], provided by the Austrian bm:bwk, is that students need to be enabled to develop a systemic view of reality and to understand that local acts and events can have global consequences (cf. Breiting et al. 2005: 24). The document claims that students need to be made aware of “Beziehungen, vielfache Einflüsse und Wechselwirkungen” (2005: 25) [relationships, multiple influences and interdependencies], which means that they need to be equipped with basic knowledge on the current economic system as well as important concepts related to it, such as supply chains or global labour division, in order to be able to understand the complex relationship between their own consumption behaviour and sustainability issues.

2.2.1.3 Skills for sustainability

With regard to the skills needed for sustainability, it is claimed that students should be equipped with the skills they need in order to “continue learning after they leave school, to find a sustainable livelihood, and to live sustainable lives.” (UNESCO 2012, online). A theoretical framework which is in support of the inclusion of the topic of sustainability into

education and deals with skills necessary for sustainability is that of so-called 21st century skills. According to the UNESCO (2012), the future challenges with regard to sustainability will require skills and knowledge which humanity does not yet have (cf. 2012, online). As challenges and problems humanity is faced with are constantly changing, in accordance with economic changes and the threats posed by the ongoing growth of human population, the generations which will have to deal with challenges lying ahead will need skills and competences which differ significantly from those which were relevant in the past. Those who support the 21st century skills movement are in favor of reforming education in schools in order to “respond to the social and economic needs of students and society in the 21st century” (Ananiadou and Claro 2009: 6).

English, Ravitz, Hixson and Megendoller (2012) provide the following list of what they consider as 21st century skills (p. 3):

Figure 1: 21st century skills according to English et al. (2012: 3)

When taking a closer look at those skills, it becomes evident that they can be considered as competencies needed in order to adopt and sustain a sustainable lifestyle and to collaborate in

order to make the world a better place. For example, critical thinking skills are defined as “being able to analyze complex problems, investigate questions for which there are no clear- cut answers, evaluate different points of view or sources of information, and draw appropriate conclusions based on evidence and reasoning” (English, Ravitz, Hixson & Megendoller 2012: 3). Another definition of critical thinking refers to it as “recognizing assumptions, taking account of context, imagining alternatives and developing scepticism” (Leicester 2013: 3). It is exactly those competencies which are necessary for an individual in order to be able to gain an understanding of the reasons underlying sustainability issues, which often are not obvious on the surface but can only be located by the process of questioning, analyzing and investigating, thereby taking into account varying perspectives and information sources.

Another concept which describes a conglomeration of skills necessary for sustainability is so- called “Gestaltungskompetenz” [“shaping competence”]. According to Haan (2007a), Gestaltungskompetenz “describes the ability to apply knowledge about sustainable development and recognise the problems involved in non-sustainable development” (p. 7) and consists of ten individual areas of competences (cf. Haan 2007a). Those areas of competences make up the competences and skills students “should have acquired on completion of secondary education within the scope of education for sustainable development” (Aldefeld et al. 2007: 7). Haan (2007a) defines a set of sub-competences for each area of competences by adopting the OECD method and formulating can-do-statements. Going into detail with regard to the sub-competences belonging to each area of competences would go beyond the scope of this thesis. The ten areas of competences, however, can provide valuable points of reference for designing materials dealing with sustainability:

1. To create knowledge in a spirit of openness to the world, integrating new perspectives; 2. To think and act in a forwardlooking manner; 3. To acquire knowledge and act in an interdisciplinary manner; 4. To be able to plan and act in cooperation with others; 5. To be able to participate in decision-making processes; 6. To be able to motivate others to become active; 7. To be able to reflect upon one’s own principles and those of others; 8. To be able to plan and act autonomously; 9. To be able to show empathy for and solidarity with the disadvantaged; 10. To be able to motivate oneself to become active (Aldefeld et al. 2007: 12).

It is those skills which educational modules aimed at teaching towards sustainability should focus on facilitating. Skills such as “ability to reflect upon one’s own principles and those of others” or “ability to show empathy and solidarity with the disadvantaged” are strongly connected to the set of values of sustainability which were discussed in the previous section.

In the following section, didactic principles which might be helpful in fostering the skills listed above are presented.

2.2.2 Didactic principles of teaching towards sustainability

There are a variety of didactic principles on which teaching towards sustainability needs to be based. In a guideline for a seminar on sustainability, provided by Bernert, Reißmann and Drieling (2013), areas of criteria as well as sub-criteria, which lessons on sustainability should meet with regard to methodology and didactics, are listed. Among the areas of criteria are participation, cooperation, action orientation as well as autonomy (cf. 2013: 49).

As has been mentioned earlier, educating towards active participation is an essential part of educating towards sustainability. It is imperative that values of sustainability, such as democracy, political participation and freedom of opinion, are mirrored in the classroom and that students are provided with opportunities to strengthen their ability to “participate in decision-making processes” (Aldefeld et al. 2007: 12), which is part of the Gestaltungskompetenz [shaping competence] as described above. The sub-criteria of participation mentioned by Bernert et al. include opportunities for students to participate in decision-making, formulate their own visions and partake in processes which allow for creativity (cf. 2013: 49). One example of an institution which allows for extensive participation of children and teenagers is the Münchner Kinder- und Jugendforum, which was founded in 1990 and, according to Frädrich (1995), has the following goal:

Kinder und junge Jugendliche in allen Lebensbereichen partizipieren zu lassen, ihre Meinungen zum Ausdruck zu bringen, ihnen dort Gehör zu verschaffen, wo sonst wenig auf ihre Belange geachtet wird: in der Politik, in der Stadt, in der Verwaltung, in der Schule und in den Medien. [enabling children and young teenagers to participate in all areas of life, voice their opinions and make them heard where normally little attention is paid to their concerns.] (p. 173)

Similar approaches are taken in so-called “democratic schools” such as the Alternativschule Berlin, in which democracy and participation can be experienced on a weekly basis during a school assembly led by students. During these assemblies, students’ concerns are discussed, and rules are established in a democratic manner. Even though participation in the assemblies is voluntary, the rules which result from the weekly meetings are mandatory for all members

of the school (cf. Freie Schule Pankow, online). Concepts such as these enable students to practice democracy and learn to value opportunities for political participation.

With regard to the didactic principle of cooperation, one of the sub-criteria formulated by Bernert et al. (2013) states that: “Verschiedene Lehr-/Lernformen werden praktiziert, insbesondere Arbeitsformen, welche die Zusammenarbeit und das soziale Lernen fördern, sowie Raum für kulturelle Vielfalt lassen.“ [A variety of different methods of teaching and learning is used, especially such that foster collaboration and social learning as well as cultural diversity.] (p. 49) Cooperation can be promoted by having students do group work which requires them to actively work together in order to solve problems or finish tasks. It is important to note, however, that using group work activities does not guarantee that cooperative learning takes place. According to Pistorio (2010), it is necessary to also “engage students in interactive behaviors and attitudes such as leadership, decision-making, trust- building, communication, negotiation, and clarifying” (p. 3). Via ensuring that their teaching adheres to the principle of cooperation, teachers enable students to develop the “ability to plan and act together with others” (Aldefeld et al. 2007: 12), which is one of the skills featured in the concept of Gestaltungskompetenz [shaping competence].

When it comes to the principles of action orientation and autonomy, it is important that opportunities for taking action and self-determination are both thematized and put to the test. Research conducted by Ohlmeier and Brunold (2015) found that the methods used in ESD put emphasis on “handlungsorientierte, entdeckende und reflexive Lernmethoden” [action oriented, discovering and reflecting methods of learning] as well as “Selbstbestimmung, Selbstorganisation und Selbstverantwortung” [self-determination, self-organization and self- responsibility] (p. 216-217). It can be argued that by adhering to those principles and using methods of teaching in accordance with those principles, teachers support students in developing one of the skills of Gestaltungskompetenz, namely, the ability to “plan and act autonomously” (Aldefeld et al. 2007: 12).

2.2.3 Limitations to teaching towards sustainability

In this section, two aspects concerning the limitations to teaching and learning towards sustainability will be dealt with. First, the question will be raised whether the aim of ESD should be to alter students’ behaviour and in how far sustainability can – and should – be

“taught”. Then the phenomenon of the so-called attitude-behaviour-gap will be presented as another factor which limits the possibilities of teaching sustainability.

2.2.3.1 Can – and should – we “teach” sustainable behaviour?

Before dealing with the question as to which methods and didactic principles should be applied both outside and inside of the EFL classroom in order to “teach” sustainability, it is necessary to contemplate an essential assumption on which ecological pedagogy has long been based: namely, that the aim of thematizing sustainability issues in the classroom is to make students adopt more sustainable behavioural patterns. For example, Nutz (2006) claims the following: “Grundsätzlich bemüht sich die Umweltbildung um eine Verhaltensänderung in Richtung eines umweltgerechteren Verhaltens“ [Essentially, environmental education aims at changing behaviour into environmentally compatible behaviour] (p. 17). There seems to be widespread agreement among scholars and authors that the ultimate goal of environmental education is to alter individual’s behaviour. However, the question needs to be raised whether the goal of ESD should even be to change or influence students’ behaviour.

It has been argued by Wals (2011) that the attempt to manipulate students’ behavioral patterns contradicts what ESD should be about, namely, supporting students in developing critical thinking skills, autonomous thinking skills as well as the ability to question the respective status quo (cf. 2011: 179). Wals (2011) claims that “The idea of influencing people’s environmental behaviour in a predetermined way (…) contradicts the very foundation of education and borders on indoctrination” (p. 179). She goes as far as to call it contradictory to, on the one hand, aim at supporting students in becoming autonomous thinkers and, on the other hand, using educational modules in order to achieve specific behavioral outcomes (cf. 2011: 179). Simon (2002) agrees by calling it “nearly paradoxical” to aim at “transferring knowledge and definitions” (p. 125) when it comes to sustainability, as the concept has been created by the means of social construction; thus, submitting a social learning process which takes into account students’ experiences is more appropriate and suitable than trying to “teach” sustainable behaviour (cf. Simon 2002). Womersley and Marshall (2002) share this view by stating that “we do not do students any favors by requiring them to think a certain way ethically, or by requiring a particular political stance in terms of sustainability policy” (p. 387) and putting emphasis on the values of freedom of thought and speech as well as critical thinking.

Apart from the fact that education should enable students to assess for themselves which actions and behavioral patterns are necessary to achieve sustainability, another factor which needs to be considered is that what constitutes sustainable behaviour is subjected to change. As a consequence, it can be considered as unrewarding to dictate students which behavioral patterns to adopt, as what appears to be sustainable today might well be outdated tomorrow. This means that, instead of treating students as mere recipients of knowledge concerning sustainable behavior, it is advisable to provide them with opportunities to become independent critical thinkers who are equipped with the skills necessary in order to solve problems related to sustainability themselves.

2.2.3.2 The attitude-behaviour-gap

An interesting phenomenon which is relevant in the context of dealing with the adoption of sustainable behaviour is the so-called attitude-behaviour-gap. The phenomenon has been recognized for a long period of time: When Bickman conducted an experiment in front of a college in 1972, he found that even though 94% of participants claimed to be of the opinion that removal of waste matter is everyone’s responsibility, only 1.4% stopped to throw away an old newspaper which had been placed on the ground in front of the library (cf. De Haan & Kuckartz 1995: 13). It became evident that there was a discrepancy between individuals’ stated opinion on environmental matters and their actual behaviour. Arngart Behrendt (2017) defines the attitude-behaviour-gap as “an observed difference between stated or believed attitudes towards environmental issues, and actual behavioral decisions, and activities” (p. 12). Farrell (2013) ascribes the concepts of expressed versus operative values to the phenomenon, with expressed values being the “ones that we say” and operative values being the “ones that we do” (p. 167).

According to Arbuthnott (2009), an individual’s behaviour is influenced by a variety of factors including the individual’s attitude but also several personal and contextual factors. Drawing upon a meta-analysis of studies which found that altered intentions and values do not automatically lead to a change in behavior, she comes to the conclusion that “if attitude change is to translate into altered behavior, education must extend beyond attitudes to assist people to act in ways consistent with their values” (2009: 152). Seven factors which play a role in the attitude-behavior-gap have been identified: “knowledge, attitudes towards sustainability, economic factors, availability, personality factors, cultural factors, and lifestyle

factors” (Arngart Behrendt 2017: 32). Examining these individual factors in depth would go beyond the scope of this diploma thesis; however, the research which has been done on the factors involved in the attitude-behavior-gap supports Arbuthnott’s claim that in order for ESD to be effective it needs to not only cover students’ knowledge and attitude but rather assist them in practical ways in adopting a more sustainable lifestyle. Nutz (2006) points out that individual’s cost-benefit calculation might play an important role when it comes to the attitude-behaviour-gap, as most individuals do not directly experience the negative effects of unsustainable behaviour and, moreover, there is no direct reward for behaving sustainably. Leitschuh-Fecht (2002) shares this view and draws the conclusion that the advantages of adopting a sustainable lifestyle for each individual should be thematized in order to convince students that sustainable behaviour is beneficial to them (cf. 2002: 42). This certainly is one way of dealing with the attitude-behaviour-gap in class; another approach would be to lay the focus on contradictions between students’ values and their behaviour (cf. Nutz 2006: 36). Assuming that each individual strives to lead a life in line with their innermost values, the solution to the problem of the attitude-behaviour-gap seems to be to draw students’ attention to the discrepancies between their expressed values and their actual environmental behaviour. In conclusion, a combination of raising students’ awareness concerning the attitude- behaviour-gap in a non-patronising way, highlighting personal benefits of sustainable behaviour and supporting students in creating concrete action plans to achieve more sustainable behaviour seems to be the way to go.

2.3 Teaching towards sustainability in the EFL classroom

The Reading Project which has been designed in the context of this diploma thesis is supposed to be implemented in the EFL classroom. It is thus worth taking into consideration the question in how far the EFL classroom should – and can – serve as an environment in which sustainability can be dealt with. In this section, an attempt will be made to show that thematizing issues of sustainability in the EFL classroom does not stand in the way of enabling students to improve their language skills and that the EFL classroom constitutes an ideal environment for the engagement with topics of sustainability. In the context of this argument, the concept of CLIL will be presented as a framework on which to base the implementation of environmental topics into the EFL classroom. Then, the suitability of the EFL classroom for implementing ESD will be discussed.

2.3.1 CLIL as a framework for teaching towards sustainability

One theoretical framework on the basis of which ESD can be implemented into EFL teaching is that of Content and Language Integrated Learning, or CLIL. This section will provide a definition of CLIL, an explanation as to why it is advantageous to adopt the approach in the EFL classroom as well as an attempt at showing how CLIL is related to ESD.

2.3.1.1 Defining CLIL

The term “CLIL”, which was first used in the 1990s (cf. Lasagabaster 2015: 43), describes a concept “in which an additional language, thus usually not the first language of the learners involved, is used as a medium in the teaching and learning of non-language content” (Marsh 2002: 15). This means that students are supposed to focus on dealing with certain topics rather than on their use of language; however, language acquisition is just as much a goal of CLIL as content mastery, as is emphasized in the following definition provided by Mehisto (2012): “CLIL is a dual-focused teaching and learning approach in which the L1 and an additional language […] are used for promoting both content mastery and language acquisition to pre- defined levels” (p. 52-53). Language is viewed as a “tool” (Pinner 2013: 51) which students use in order to engage with and produce meaningful content. This means that both language input and output occur naturally due to an authentic engagement with a specific content area, up to the point at which “language learning becomes almost an incidental activity” (Lasagabaster & Sierra 2009: 13).

2.3.1.2 Advantages of using CLIL in Foreign Language Teaching

Taking a CLIL approach to FLT brings with it a variety of advantages, one of which concerns the authenticity of materials used. There are varying definitions of the term “authenticity”, differing with regard to the requirements which have to be met in order for situations, interactions or materials to be considered as “authentic”. According to the definition provided by Tomlinson and Masuhara (2010), materials are authentic if they are “designed not to transmit declarative knowledge about the target language but rather to provide an experience of the language in use” (p. 400). A rather controversial view, which is put forward by Lasagabaster and Sierra (2009), is that traditional FLT does not allow for authenticity as language is not used naturally but rather in an artificial way with the emphasis being on 34

language itself (cf. 2009: 13). Dalton-Puffer (n.d.) agrees by citing research according to which students who are suspected to traditional EFL teaching are of the opinion that the purpose of EFL talk is not to convey meaningful messages but rather to perform instances of “rehearsed practice” (p. 9). This means that, according to students’ perception, traditional EFL teaching lacks in opportunities for authentic communication, which is problematic, considering that using language to convey meaningful content is how languages are learned most effectively (cf. Al-Jamal & Al-Omari 2014: 153) and that authenticity of situations is vital for language learning (cf. Lasagabaster & Sierra 2009: 13). It has been argued that CLIL is able to offer more opportunities for authentic communication than traditional FLT (cf. Lasagabaster and Sierra 2009). Pinner (2013) supports this claim by stating that CLIL is preferable to traditional FLT because “content subjects give rise to real communication by tapping into a great reservoir of ideas, concepts and meanings allowing for natural use of the target language (TL)” (p. 53).

Another advantage of CLIL which is closely linked to the aspect of authenticity is that using CLIL in FLT has a positive effect on students’ motivation to learn languages (cf. European Commission 2012, online). According to Ushioda (2009), one factor which influences students’ motivation is their individual identity and whether or not they are given opportunities to express their own opinions by speaking as themselves (cf. 2009: 215). CLIL is an approach which encourages authenticity and as actions are authentic if they are “an expression of what a person genuinely feels and believes” (van Lier 1996: 6), CLIL provides students with opportunities to engage with their own identities and make personal growth and identity formation part of the language learning experience. It has to be noted, though, that successful EFL teaching fulfils these criteria, regardless of whether or not a CLIL approach is taken. Moreover, the increase in motivation in CLIL classrooms could also be attributed to the opposite phenomenon, namely, that students perceive the usage of a language different from their mother tongue as enabling them to distance themselves from the content they produce. A study carried out by Gassner and Maillat (2006) suggests that students are more active participants of role-plays concerning environmental issues if those role-plays are carried out in a language which is not the students’ L1. One way in which these results can be interpreted is that using an L2 to carry out the role-play took away the students’ fear that their utterances might be perceived as their own opinions by their classmates (cf. Gassner & Maillat 2006). If using a foreign language to conduct role-plays (or similar activities in which students are supposed to take on the identity of another person) has this positive effect on students’ motivation and participation, then activities such as role-plays – which focus on content rather 35

than on language itself and thus meet the criteria of a CLIL approach – are ideally suited for the EFL classroom.

Another aspect of CLIL which can be described as advantageous is that it allows for intercultural learning (cf. Sudhoff 2010: 36) as usage of authentic materials leads to students’ engagement with real foreign perspectives (cf. Rodríguez & Puyal 2012: 110). If students are presented with foreign viewpoints which can be considered as authentic, it increases their understanding of and empathy towards other cultures, which in turn, as will be discussed later, contributes to learning towards sustainability.

2.3.1.3 CLIL and teaching towards sustainability

As has been discussed above, CLIL is an approach which allows for a dual focus in the EFL classroom, namely, a focus on both content and language. It thus constitutes a framework within which teaching and learning towards sustainability can be combined with EFL teaching. The approach allows not only for teaching content related to sustainability but, due to enabling an engagement with aspects other than language in the context of language teaching, also for teaching towards the values, knowledge and skills of sustainability and towards life skills in general.

Moreover, as mentioned above, CLIL offers the opportunity for both authenticity and intercultural learning in the EFL classroom. How those aspects are related to teaching towards sustainability will be shown in sections 2.4.4.2 and 2.4.4.4. Authentic language use, as facilitated by CLIL contexts, can be used in order to engage with topics related to sustainability – Pinner (2013) names “discussions about environmental issues” (p. 61-62) as an example of authentic language use as is encouraged in CLIL classrooms. Using language in order to exchange opinions on environmental matters and to attempt to solve problems related to unsustainable human behaviour, which can be done in the course of educational modules based on the CLIL approach, is authentic in so far as the topic’s relevance extends beyond the limitations of the classroom.

2.3.2 Suitability of the EFL classroom for implementing ESD

In this section, the following three reasons as to why the EFL classroom can be considered as an environment in which an engagement with sustainability-related issues should take place will be discussed: Firstly, EFL teachers, just like teachers of any other school subject, have a moral obligation to prepare students for the task of solving problems which arise from a lack of sustainability and to support them in adopting a sustainable lifestyle. Secondly, English plays an important role in the agitation for sustainability due to its function as lingua franca. Lastly, EFL allows for an engagement with a variety of issues and topics; and ecological topics offer excellent opportunities for communication.

As sustainability-related issues will be among the most pressing issues future generations will have to deal with, teachers of individual subjects are, to some extent, morally obligated to cope with the matter accordingly and incorporate the topic of sustainability into their teaching. Cates (1997) supports this claim by stating that

We can’t call our English teaching successful if our students, however fluent, are ignorant of world problems, have no social conscience by using their communication skills for international crime, exploitation, oppression or environmental destruction. (p. 4)

In his view, the level of awareness and righteousness with regard to global problems students achieve by participating in EFL lessons determines whether or not successful English teaching takes place. Thus, he clearly indicates that engagement with world problems is not only an optional addition but rather an integral part of English teaching. In a similar vein, Al- Jamal and Al-Omari (2014) argue that EFL teaching should go beyond focusing on language proficiency and enable students to develop thinking skills which support them in achieving ecological sustainability (cf. 2014: 151). Maley (1992) agrees by arguing that using the EFL classroom in order to focus on global problems, such as nuclear waste or the deforestation of rain forest areas, could to some degree lead to the resolution of those problems (cf. 1992: 73). Taferner, Sakamoto, Torbert, Wright and Yphantides (2011) support this claim by stating that it is crucial to raise awareness concerning critical issues in the EFL classroom as it may enable students to make the world a better place (cf. 2011: 289). Brown (1991) goes so far as to say that it is part of EFL teachers’ responsibility to make students aware of “as many issues as possible that intrinsically affect their lives” (p. 4). There seems to be widespread consensus that EFL teachers should acknowledge the relevance of issues related to sustainability and thus cover them in their classes.

Another argument in favour of making the connection between EFL teaching and sustainability is the fact that English serves as a lingua franca and thus plays an important role in the kind of international communication which will be needed in order to solve sustainability-related problems. Brown (1991) put emphasis on the function of English as a lingua franca by arguing that English teachers are supposed to support students to develop the skills necessary in order to be able to communicate with other humans across the world in the pursuit of solutions to global issues (cf. 1991: 4-5). By addressing topics related to sustainability in the EFL classroom, EFL teachers ensure that students are equipped with the lexical and grammatical skills they will need in order to cooperate with speakers of other languages in a quest for designing solutions to issues linked to sustainability.

The third reason why the EFL classroom is an environment which is suited for the exploration of themes connected to sustainability is that EFL, by its nature, allows for dealing with a wide range of topics, including ecological themes such as sustainability. Rivers (1976) refers to this fact by stating that language teachers “are the most fortunate of teachers – all subjects are ours. Whatever [the student] wants to communicate about, whatever they want to read about is our subject matter.“ (p. 96). Language teachers can select from a wide variety of topics and themes, the main criterion being that the subject matter they choose is relevant to the students. This is true, irrespective of whether any individual teacher lays the focus on content-based teaching or rather on improving the students’ language proficiency. Even if the latter is the case, working with content which is interesting to the students will increase their motivation and thus have a positive influence on their engagement with language-related aspects. Ecological themes are not only relevant to students but are also, as Al-Jamal and Al-Omari (cf. 2014: 152) as well as Nkwetisama (cf. 2011: 112) argue, an excellent basis for communication in classrooms.

2.4 Using YAL in order to promote values of sustainability in the EFL classroom

This section deals with the relationship between literature, in particular Young Adult Literature, and teaching towards sustainability. First, a detailed definition of Young Adult Literature will be provided. Then, the role literature plays in the EFL classroom with regard to language acquisition will be discussed, followed by an explanation of how YAL can serve as a “gateway” into the world of literature as well as an in-depth analysis of the connections between YAL and teaching towards sustainability.

2.4.1 Definition of Young Adult Literature (YAL)

Young Adult Literature, or YAL as it is abbreviated, has become an integral part of the EFL classroom since the last turn of the century (cf. Matz & Stieger 2015: 121). According to Matz and Stieger (2015), a clear-cut definition of YAL is yet to be formulated; however, it can be said that YAL refers to literature which is intended to be read or is actually read by young individuals. The elusiveness of the concept “young” becomes evident when considering that different definitions of YAL ascribe various age ranges to the readers, all of which are within the scope of 11 to 25. As a rule of thumb, it is suggested that age-wise, YAL readers approximately equate to students who attend secondary school (cf. 2015: 121).

As can be seen, narrowing down the age range of YAL readers is difficult; however, there are certain characteristics of YAL which allow for an attempt at defining it: Young Adult Literature features adolescent main characters “that face similar questions, issues, problems, fears, and joys as most youngsters of that age” (Matz & Stieger 2015: 122) and, accordingly, deals with topics relevant to teenagers, such as friendship, identity or love. The aspect of themes which are relevant to adolescent readers plays an important role in the definition of YAL provided by Bucher and Hinton (2010), according to which it “provides a unique adolescent point of view, and reflects the concerns, interests and challenges of contemporary young adults” (p. 9). They support the idea underlying their definition by quoting the requirements the Young Adult Literary Services Association has formulated with regard to a prize they award to novels if they “have provided young adults with a window through which they can view their world, and which will help them to grow and to understand themselves and their role in society” (YALSA 1996, as cited in Bucher & Hinton 2010: 4). In a similar vein, Rönnqvist and Sell (1994) claim that what books which belong to the category of YAL 39

have in common, is that they “should be directly relevant to the life experiences, thoughts, emotions and dreams of young people” (p. 126). In summary, YAL refers to works of literature which focus on the experiences of one or more adolescent main characters and deal with topics that are relevant to teenagers and, to some extent, mirror their own current life experiences.

2.4.2 Literature and language acquisition in the EFL classroom

According to Collie and Slater (1991), using literature in the language classroom is beneficial as literary texts are authentic materials which contribute to cultural learning as well as an improvement of language skills and personal growth. Engaging with literature is not only highly beneficial in terms of vocabulary acquisition, but also subjects students to diverse stylistic features of the English language and, moreover, enables them to improve their own writing styles (cf. Collie and Slater 1987/1996). Hwang (2005) emphasises the positive effects reading has on students’ language skills by claiming that one of her students, who she considered as a “miracle student”, had gained his skills via the means of extensively reading for pleasure:

Later I found out that this “miracle student” followed the same routine of traditional Taiwan’s English education as his classmates and had never studied in an English-speaking country. But, for many years he had read English magazines on popular music out of interest. […] This student has demonstrated that constant pleasure reading of current authentic materials in English afforded him a near-native intuition. (p. 5-6)

It can be argued that using literature in the EFL classroom offers a variety of advantages in terms of improving language skills as well as with regard to cultural learning, the latter of which will be dealt with in more depth in the following section. Krashen (1989) goes so far as to say that “reading for genuine interest and pleasure may be the single greatest educational tool available” (p. 109). Depending on the age of the learners, it might be advisable to use YAL, or Young Adult Literature.

2.4.3 YAL as a “gateway to literature”

The use of Young Adult Literature in the EFL classroom has a variety of positive effects on students, some of which are identical to the benefits of using literature in general and, as with regard to language acquisition, were mentioned in the first section of this chapter. It can be argued that, furthermore, the use of YAL enables teachers to prepare students for their engagement with literature aimed at adults, as YAL offers an “opportunity to practice understanding plots, character development, narration, and other literary techniques and effects” (Matz & Stieger 2015: 122-123). Blasingame (2007) argues in a similar vein, stating the following:

We give our children Dr. Seuss as early readers, with the hope that they will one day be ready for Dr. Zhivago. We recommend Charlotte’s Web, fully believing they will one day be capable of interpreting the political meaning of another barnyard in Animal Farm. But would it make sense to start with Pasternak and Orwell rather than Seuss and White? Not really. (p. 21)

However, YAL is more than merely a “gateway into the world of literature” (Matz & Stieger 2015: 122) and needs to be considered as a valuable source for students’ growth and development in its own right. Using YAL in the EFL classroom is beneficial for a variety of reasons, some of which are directly linked to teaching towards sustainability. The advantages of using YAL and how they are related to teaching values of as well as skills for sustainability will be discussed in the following section.

2.4.4 Using YAL in order to teach towards sustainability

Young Adult Literature has a variety of characteristics which make it enormously valuable for using it in order to encourage students to adopt values of sustainability in the EFL classroom. Those characteristics will be discussed in detail in this section. One question which will be answered first is in how far YAL – or literature in general – even has the potential of influencing readers’ worldviews, values and patterns of behaviour.

2.4.4.1 Literature’s influence on values and behaviour

If literature is to be used in order to have a positive effect on students’ behaviour with regard to sustainability, the question needs to be raised to what extent and in what way literature 41

influences students’ mindsets and, consequently, actions. As has been mentioned, the main characters in YAL resemble the intended reader with regard to both their age as well as the interests they have and problems they face. This gives students the opportunity to identify and connect with the characters and, as the plot unfolds, witness and indirectly experience their thought processes, decisions and behaviours. Matz and Stieger (2015) refer to this phenomenon by stating that “the world created in the literary text becomes a ‘playground’ where students can indirectly experience (unknown) situations and try out opinions, actions and decisions which they cannot try out in real life because of the consequences which would result” (p. 123). Identifying with the characters and either sharing or opposing their viewpoints and actions gives students the opportunity to reflect on their own values and behavioural patterns. Matz and Stieger (2015) summarize Alsup’s standpoint (cf. Alsup 2010: 5) in the following way:

these opportunities to explore ways of evaluating situations and taking actions that are different from those ways they can usually apply in real life can be highly valuable for students’ personal growth because the experiences readers have during their reading can influence their behavior in the real world.” (Matz & Stieger 2015: 124)

These processes can be supported by carefully scaffolding the reading process and providing students with manifold opportunities to share their feelings, thoughts and interpretations and contrast them to their peers’. In this way, using literature in the EFL classroom enables students to re-evaluate their viewpoints, values and actions with regard to both minor and major aspects of their lives. As Blau (2003) puts it: Allowing students to engage in reading processes can “powerfully influence our students’ capacity to negotiate, interpret, and evaluate all the events of their lives, from the most ordinary to the most momentous” (p. 205). While reading, students constantly interpret and evaluate the actions and events taking place in the story, which equips them with the skills they need in order to make sense of actions and events related to their own lives. This strengthens their ability to reflect on events of their lives which are related to sustainability and to recognize that sustainability can have an impact on various events – both minor and major – in their lives.

2.4.4.2 YAL as a source of authentic materials

As has been discussed before, when teaching towards sustainability in the EFL classroom it is essential to use authentic materials as they allow for students to directly experience language 42

and thus facilitate the occurrence of experiential learning. According to Nunan, writings which belong to the category of YAL meet the criteria of authenticity not only in so far as they were not written with the intention of being used for pedagogical purposes, but also because they are authentic with regard to the intended readers’ reality of life (cf. Nunan 1988). This is due to the fact that, according to Nunan (1988), YAL mirrors “the interests of the learner by relating to his interests, background knowledge and experience” (p. 102) and thus gives rise to “genuine communication” (p. 102) in the classroom. It can thus be argued that the authentic nature of YAL is advantageous with regard to teaching towards sustainability for two separate reasons: Firstly, it allows for experiential learning which is a crucial concept foundational to teaching towards sustainability. Secondly, it leads to authentic communication and thus constitutes a basis for the design of communicative tasks, fostering communicative skills which are part of the 21st century skills and an essential part of skills for sustainability.

2.4.4.3 YAL and students’ ability to take on different perspectives

There are a wide range of values for sustainability which require individuals to be able to take on another person’s perspective and understand their point of view as well as the reasons underlying it. These values for sustainability include abstract concepts such as peace and love, but also more tangible ones such as empathy, understanding, compassion, tolerance or respect for all living beings. There are also values which have effects that can directly be experienced, such as freedom of opinion and speech or social and economic justice, which cannot be achieved unless individuals are capable of seeing things through another person’s eyes and thus acknowledging the legitimacy of their feelings and opinions. With regard to skills for sustainability, the ability to take on varying perspectives is a necessary prerequisite for two areas of skills featured in the concept of “Gestaltungskompetenz”: in order to be able to “reflect upon one’s own principles and those of others” and to “show empathy and solidarity with the disadvantaged” (Aldefeld et al. 2007: 12), it is imperative to first be able to imagine how other individuals might be experiencing the world. Using YAL in the EFL classroom can make an important contribution to enabling students to gain the skill of changing perspective, which is foundational to all of the values and skills mentioned above.

Matz and Stieger (2015) emphasise that YAL provides an opportunity for students to strengthen their capability of changing perspectives and that “the ability to take on someone

else’s point of view is closely connected to the ability to decentre and to develop empathy” (p. 123-124). This claim is agreed on by Duncan (2009), who states that “stories are one very important way of helping children connect with themselves, with others in their own lives and with those who live in imagined worlds who may see, think and feel in ways different from their own” (p. 1-2). Pardede (2011) argues in a similar way, stating that “by reading literary works, learners learn to see a world through another’s eyes, observing human values and a different kind of living” (p. 16). Being able to gain an understanding of how other people experience the world and connecting with them on an emotional level is what enables individuals to feel empathetic towards others and then develop all of the other values for sustainability mentioned above. Reading Young Adult Literature and, by doing so, experiencing the protagonist’s as well as other characters’ perspectives facilitates those exact learning processes. According to Corbett (2010), literature is a means of enabling individuals to develop not only empathy but also openness towards diversity (cf. 2010: 6-7). This goes to show that being able to take on other perspectives is closely related to cultural learning, which in turn plays a major role in teaching towards sustainability.

2.4.4.4 YAL, cultural learning and sustainability

According to one of the 21st century skills, students are supposed to be capable of making global connections, meaning that they are “able to understand global, geo-political issues including awareness of geography, culture, language, history and literature from other countries”. An understanding of other cultures and the ability to communicate effectively with members of cultures different to their own will be indispensable assets in the quest for sustainability for both current students and future generations. Jones (2015) describes the significance of culture when it comes to sustainability in the following way: “When sustainability is being discussed it must include an understanding of culture as well as the environment in which it occurs, so that community and geographic perspectives are not overlooked” (p. 57). She argues that in order for sustainable development to be possible, cultural factors need to be taken into consideration (cf. Jones 2015). A variety of values for sustainability, such as peace, human dignity, fair distribution of wealth or putting an end to discrimination and poverty, are related to aspects of cultural awareness and understanding if they are viewed with regard to their global dimensions. Only if students are able to understand cultures different to their own and to recognize that the needs of individuals belonging to other cultures are of equal importance, the goal of equity and equality of all human beings 44

will be achieved. Intercultural awareness and competence thus play an important role with regard to the social aspects of sustainability.

YAL contributes to cultural awareness and intercultural competence in a wide range of ways. Firstly, according to Blasingame, before the use of Young Adult Literature became common in the EFL classroom, the cultural and ethnic diversity of students was not mirrored in their reading, as they were primarily confronted with writings of “Dead Old White Men”. (Blasingame 2007: 22). Laurie Halse Anderson (2005) summarizes this phenomenon by stating that “Young Adult Literature is multicultural literature.” (Anderson 2005, as cited in Blasingame 2007: 23). Secondly, as Rönnqvist and Sell (1994) point out, engaging with YAL leads to students gaining knowledge “of the societies, cultures, and sub-cultures depicted in them, to many of which they would otherwise have no immediate access” (p. 129). They go on to say that traditional EFL textbooks tend to portray members of other nations or cultures “in a way which deprives them of basic human dignity and tends to evoke and reinforce the prejudices embodied in national stereotypes” (p. 130), which is not the case with YAL as it often allows students to take on the perspectives of members of other cultures and thus directly experience their thought processes and emotions. Another reason as to why YAL is suitable for being adapted for cultural learning is that is raises cultural awareness. As Tomlinson and Masuhara (2004) point out, cultural awareness is the outcome of experiencing another culture, which can happen directly or indirectly, for example via literature (cf. 2004: 1-7). Rodriguez and Puyal (2012) claim that through a rise in intercultural awareness and competence “more tolerant and open attitudes towards other cultures” (p. 108) can be achieved. They further argue that cultural learning reduces the risk of fundamentalism as it enables individuals to decentre their perspectives and thus recognize the relativity of the values underlying their own culture. When discussing the link between English literature and intercultural competence, they come to the conclusion that literature is able to “erase prejudices, to enhance empathy for others, to avoid monolithic perspectives, to reduce contempt towards other cultures, and to counter racist attitudes” (p. 119).

2.4.4.5 YAL and critical thinking

Critical thinking is not only part of the 21st century skills but also an important prerequisite for environmental literacy as well as the majority of skills subsumed by the concept of Gestaltungskompetenz. According to the framework of 21st skills, critical thinking skills refer

to the ability to “analyse complex problems, investigate questions for which there are no clear-cut answers, evaluate different points of view or sources of information, and draw appropriate conclusions based on evidence and reasoning” (English et al. 2012: 3). If this definition is read against the description of what is meant by environmental literacy – namely understanding the mechanisms of natural systems and, based on this understanding, creating analyses, evaluations, predictions and decisions concerning those systems – it becomes evident that there is a strong connection between environmental literacy and critical thinking. The same can be said about the sub-competences of Gestaltungskompetenz, most of which require individuals to analyse problems, investigate questions, evaluate sources and draw conclusions. For example, one of the can-do-statements belonging to the competence of “ability to show empathy and solidarity with the disadvantaged” is the following: “Students can describe and evaluate ways of taking on individual, social, economic and political responsibility for (non-) sustainable development processes” (Aldefeld et al. 2007: 20). This ability presupposes an understanding of the complex issues related to development processes as well as an analysis of whether or not the processes are sustainable. It further requires students to investigate the question as to how responsibility for those processes could be taken; and, moreover, students need to be able to describe and evaluate their conclusions. This example illustrates how this particular sub-competence is related to critical thinking skills. The relationship between the other areas of competences of Gestaltungskompetenz and critical thinking could be demonstrated in a similar way.

According to Day (1999), “when we think critically, we come to our judgements, choices and decisions for ourselves, instead of letting others do this on our behalf.” (p. 32). This describes what young adult readers are required to do in the process of reading YAL. During the reading process, they are constantly presented with the characters’ judgements, choices and decisions, and by taking their perspectives they are required to reflect on both the characters’ points of view as well their own, which triggers processes of critical thinking. Matz and Stieger (2015) point out another factor which contributes to YAL enhancing critical thinking: As Young Adult Literature often deals with relevant topics which are discussed on a societal level, it allows for integrating those topics in the EFL classroom, which provides opportunities for enlarging students’ political awareness and critical thinking (cf. 2015: 126). Sustainability can be considered as one of those societal issues which can be thematized in the EFL classroom via the use of Young Adult Literature.

3 The Reading Project

In this section, the reading project will be discussed in detail. First, a rationale for choosing the topic of the reading project will be provided. Then a section will be dedicated to giving insights into the choice of books which are covered by the reading project. Next, three significant ideas and principles the project is based on will be explained in more detail, namely, extensive reading, integrating skills and task-based language teaching. The main part of this section will then attend to the reasons underlying the choice of the individual activities in the reading project. Each of the activities will be discussed with regard to the didactic considerations its design was based on.

3.1 Rationale for choosing the topic

The reading project which is put forward in this thesis deals with the topic of fast fashion and its social and environmental impact as well as more sustainable alternatives. In the following, the rationale behind choosing this particular topic will be elaborated on. First, the fact that one specific topic, such as fast fashion, can be used as representative of similar topics related to sustainability will be discussed. Then the range of the topic as well as its significance will be explained. Lastly, it will be shown that the topic is especially relevant to the age group targeted by the reading project.

3.1.1 Reasons for choosing one particular topic

As has been discussed in the previous chapter, the phenomenon of the so-called attitude- behaviour-gap plays an important role in preventing students – and humans in general – from adopting sustainable lifestyles. Various research findings have shown that it can be assumed that educational modules which encourage sustainable behaviour instead of merely informing students about environmental problems are more effective, as they help students in coming up with concrete intentions and actions plans concerning their behaviour (cf. Arbuthnott 2009). As has been observed by Arbuthnott (2009), focusing on specific topics or subject areas supports students in arriving at conclusions concerning their intentions with regard to the domain which is targeted (cf. 2009: 161). It thus makes sense to design an educational module on one specific topic such as fashion, instead of thematizing the topic of sustainability and environmentalism in more general terms. This view is supported by Vining and Ebreo (1992), 47

whose findings are summarized by Abruthnott (2009) as she states that “concrete behavioural intentions are more likely to lead to behaviour change than are general attitudes. For example, attitudes to recycling predict recycling behaviour much more effectively than do attitudes to environmentalism” (p. 154).

Focusing on one specific topic or subject area allows for using this topic as an example for general issues related to sustainability and environmentalism. The mechanisms and underlying principles are the same, irrespective of whether sustainability is discussed in relation to mobility, fashion or any other domain in which questions of sustainability occur. Important concepts, such as consumerism or capitalism, are transferable and help students to make sense of the issue of sustainability in broader terms. This standpoint is underpinned by the content of the Sourcebook on Education for Sustainable Development, as designing a lesson on the environmental aspects of clothing and fashion is given as an example of how to incorporate the topic of sustainability into the classroom (cf. UNESCO 2012, online). In the example, students are asked to consider factors such as their clothes’ carbon footprint, where they were produced, which modes of transportation and resources were used, and so on. The section on the proposed lesson on clothing and sustainability is concluded with the assertion that “from simple statements such as these, pupils will build their conceptions of sustainability and their knowledge of it.” (UNESCO 2012, online). This means that students can develop an understanding of complex concepts such as sustainability by being subjected to lessons focusing on specific examples and domains, such as the fashion industry and its impact on the environment.

3.1.2 Definition/explanation and importance of the topic

The toll the fashion industry takes on the environment cannot be denied, and the negative effects of this industry will become more severe as the amount of textiles which are consumed worldwide keeps rising. On average, each person on this planet consumes 11 kg of garments per year. In Austria, 18 kg of garments are bought by the average consumer per year (cf. Arngart Behrendt 2017: 16). Raising awareness concerning the connection between garment consumption on the one hand and environmental degradation on the other hand thus seems to be of major importance.

The reason for the fact that the number of textiles purchased by the average consumer per year keeps rising is rooted in the fashion system itself. In terms of the distinction between 48

usable and durable goods (with usable goods being those who are used up, while durable goods can be used for longer periods of time), clothes formerly used to belong to the latter category. Nowadays, however, they are perceived as and treated like consumable goods (cf. Arnhart Behrendt 2017: 7). It can be argued that obsolescence is one of the major concepts the fashion industry works with and is based on (cf. Abrahamson 2011: 615-629). In order for profits to rise, consumers need to be convinced that they feel a need for purchasing new clothes on a regular basis. The industry creates this need in consumers both by producing low quality garments which need to be replaced regularly and by using advertising in order to manipulate consumers into believing their current wardrobe is outdated. One concept which carries these mechanisms to extremes is so-called “Fast Fashion”.

An important differentiation, which is emphasized in the course of the reading project, has to be made between the concepts of so-called “Fast Fashion” and “Slow Fashion”. Fast Fashion or “McFashion” – a term which was coined in reference to what Ritzer (2011) calls “McDonaldization” (p. 1) – refers to a system of multiple collections per year which encourages cheap clothes of low quality and a rapid change in trends (cf. Arngart Behrendt 2017: 17) as well as high profits for clothing companies. Slow Fashion, on the other hand, can be described as a concept which lays the focus on “quality, durability, and long-term investment and values the relationship between the consumer and the environment” (Preuit & Yan 2017: 1144). It is also concerned with the social aspect of garment production and thus with providing employees who work in the garment industry with living wages (cf. Niinimäki, 2010: 150-162). Slow Fashion aims at ensuring that the production and distribution of fashion is ecologically and socially sustainable. The significance of achieving this goal becomes evident when considering the fact that with regard to the depletion of natural resources and the level of pollution humankind has surpassed the planet’s capacities (cf. Joy, Sherry, Venkatesh, Wang & Chan 2012: 290).

3.1.3 Relevance of the topic

When Morgan and Britwistle conducted a study on the consumption of fashion in 2009, the reason why they chose college-aged teenagers as their subjects was that due to their age, they represent the target market of companies producing and selling fast fashion (cf. Morgan & Birtwhistle 2009, as cited in Preuit & Yan 2017: 1146). Their research showed that 75% of the female participants bought new pieces of clothing once a month and more than 50%

admitted to purchasing new garments twice a month (cf. Preuit & Yan 2017: 1143). According to Joy, Sherry, Venkatesh, Wang and Chan (2012), it can be assumed that students and young adults who are younger than 35 years of age are the demographic that is most aware of trends and is prone to continually shopping for new pieces of clothing (cf. 2012: 283). Considering these facts, it can be argued that discussing the topic of fast fashion with students who are around 16 or 17 years of age is advisable and promising. Not only do they belong to fast fashion companies’ target market and should thus be made aware of their strategies and agendas, but they are also part of the demographic that is most likely to place value on trends and thus shop excessively.

Another reason why this topic is relevant to students and to the public in general is that there seems to be a lack of awareness concerning the relationship between the environment and sustainability on the one hand and the fast fashion industry as well individual consumers’ purchasing decisions with regard to clothes on the other hand. Joy et al. (2012) conducted interviews in which they asked young consumers of fast fashion who reside in Canada or Hong Kong about their opinions and values in terms of clothing and sustainability. Their study revealed that young consumers do not draw the connection between the fashion items they purchase and issues of sustainability, even though they are conscious of sustainability issues and try to act and consume accordingly in other areas of their lives (cf. 2012: 277-288). In order to support this claim, the authors included the following example in the presentation of their study’s findings: “Alicia, who works in a grocery store in Canada, talked about how important it was to be vegetarian, given large scale agribusiness’ detrimental impact on the environment. But Alicia was oblivious of the links between environmental issues and her obsession with fast fashion” (Joy et al. 2012: 285). Similar to Alicia, an overwhelming majority of the participants were either unaware of the impact their consumption of fashion has on the environment or they ignore it (cf. 2012: 286). Joy et al. (2012) draw the conclusion that “young people separate fashion from sustainability. They definitely support the idea of sustainability, but do not apply such ethics when it comes to sustainable fashion” (p. 288). As was confirmed by their study, young consumers from Canada and Hong Kong do not consider the factor of sustainability in their purchasing of clothes and, moreover, they feel hardly any guilt with regard to the lack of sustainability in the fashion industry. All in all, they were unable to realize that there is a significant discrepancy between their general opinions on the subject of sustainability and their behaviour when it comes to purchasing fashion (cf. 2012: 280). This clearly goes to show that it makes sense to discuss the topic of the fast fashion

industry and its impact on the environment with young students, as they might not yet be aware of the issues related to their consumption of fast fashion garments.

Another factor which adds to the relevance of the topic is that a rise in knowledge and awareness concerning the relationship between garment consumption and environmental issues can lead to a change in behaviour. Informing students about the link between their consumption of fashion and environmental problems can contribute to them altering their behaviour in favour of more sustainable alternatives to fast fashion. As was confirmed by a study, consumers who were more knowledgeable with regard to sustainability showed a higher probability of purchasing garments made of organic cotton (cf. Kang, Liu & Kim 2013: 442-452). Furthermore, research showed that young consumers are under the impression that they lack the knowledge necessary in order to be able to base their decisions concerning garment consumption on ethical considerations (cf. Pookulangara & Shepard 2013: 200-206). Combining these findings suggests that students could profit from an educational module on fast fashion’s impact on the environment in so far as they might lack the knowledge they need in order to purchase sustainable clothing and might make changes in their consumption habits if they were provided with opportunities to extend their awareness and knowledge.

3.2 Rationale for choosing the books

During the first lesson of the reading project, the students are provided with a choice between three different books – Material Girls by Elaine Dimopoulos, Iqbal by Francesco D’Adamo and Factory Girl by Josanne LaValley – and choose one to read during the reading project. The reason why students get to pick one book out of three is that, according to Alyousef, it is essential to enable students to choose from a variety of books, as has been shown by a meta- analysis of research conducted by Guthrie and Humenick. They found that not only is student motivation increased but also the outcome students achieve when being faced with reading tasks is better if they were given a variety of options with regard to what they read. (cf. Alyousef 2006: 67). Hsu (2004) agrees by stating that it is “absolutely wise for teachers to provide variety of books when trying to help students decide what to read” (p. 8).

The books were chosen on the basis of a suggestion by Monson (1995), according to whom teachers should consider three aspects when choosing books for their students: Firstly, whether the books are capable of making the students connect on an emotional level; 51

secondly, whether the way in which the books are written is aesthetically pleasing and, lastly, whether they appear to be meaningful (cf. 1995, as cited in Hsu 2004: 7). The three books which were chosen for the reading project put forward in this thesis can be said to meet those three requirements. Their engaging plots and relatable characters allow for students to get emotionally involved, the writing styles are appropriate in terms of the intended readers’ age as well as the respective genres and, moreover, each of the three books can be considered as highly meaningful with regard to their content. They deal with topics such as friendships, family, authority or courage and each book ends with a strong, meaningful message.

What the books have in common is that they deal with aspects related to the overall topic of the reading project, namely, the negative impacts of the fast fashion industry. Each of the books thematizes the relationship between the textile industry and the occurrence of sweat shops and draws attention to how social and economic inequality is created through the industry. The fact that the books focus primarily on the social issues arising due to unsustainable practices is unproblematic in so far as the classroom activities designed in order to complement the reading process are primarily concerned with the environmental problems related to a lack of sustainability in the fast fashion industry. It can thus be argued that the books and the content dealt with in the classroom are complementary and, in combination, cover both the social and environmental perspectives on sustainability and the fashion system.

The books are similar with regard to the topic areas they depict; however, they were chosen so as to cater for the needs of a homogenous group of students who differ with regard to their personal preferences as well as the levels of their reading skills. For this reason, they show considerable differences in terms of a variety of aspects: Firstly, two of the books appear to be more realistic, with one of them being based on a true story, whereas the third book is a dystopian novel belonging in the realms of science fiction. This guarantees that each students’ preference with regard to the degree of realism a story should have is taken into account. Secondly, the writing styles of the books differ in so far as Iqbal, on the one hand, is written in a style which could be described as plain and simple, and The Factory Girl, on the other hand, contains passages which are highly poetic. The third aspect with regard to which the books are different from each other is their complexity and length. As Hsu (2004) states, it is crucial to provide students with a choice of different books with varying lengths and difficulty (cf. 2004: 8). Students need to have the option of a shorter and less complex book if that is what matches their confidence in their reading abilities.

3.3 Rationale for choosing the activities

3.3.1 Underlying ideas and principles

In this section, three concepts which have been considered in the design of the reading project will be discussed in detail: The concept of extensive reading is foundational to the way in which the students will engage with YAL in the context of the reading project. Secondly, integrating skills will be presented as a crucial concept which calls for taking into account each of the four traditional skills and combining them in as natural a way as possible. The final concept which will be discussed in this section is task-based language teaching and the task-dependency principle.

3.3.1.1 Extensive Reading

According to Alyousef (2006), Hafiz and Tudor claim that the aim of extensive reading is “to ‘flood’ learners with large quantities of L2 input with few or possibly no specific tasks to perform on this material” (p. 67). Confronting students with long texts without requiring them to do specific tasks while reading can be beneficial. For example, according to Alderson and Bachmann (2000), asking students to answer questions while reading might lead to them only focusing on searching for the answers to the particular questions (cf. 2000: 51). The idea which underlies extensive reading, however, is that during the reading process students will learn incidentally. Hafiz and Tudor (1989) put it like this: “The pedagogical value attributed to extensive reading is based on the assumption that exposing learners to large quantities of meaningful and interesting L2 material will, in the long run, produce a beneficial effect on the learners’ command of the L2” (p. 5).

A study, which was conducted by Hafiz and Tudor (1989) and was centred around an extensive reading programme they offered to students for a period of three months, showed that students were able to improve their writing skills during the reading programme via the means of incidental learning (cf. 1989: 8). Another area in which reading has been shown to lead to incidental learning is vocabulary acquisition: Nagy, Anderson and Herman (1987) are among the scholars whose research can be considered as evidence that students learn vocabulary incidentally as a result of reading in their first language (cf. 1987: 261). Day et al. (1991) conducted a study which tested whether this claim can be extended to include EFL students reading in the EFL classroom. Their research focused on EFL students in Japan and 53

suggests that reading silently for the purpose of entertainment enables students to better recognize words they had been unfamiliar with before the reading exercise. Thus, Day et al. came to the conclusion that an extensive reading programme could be highly beneficial for students with regard to vocabulary acquisition, as it allows for them to be confronted with specific words multiple times and in a wide range of contexts (cf. 1991: 545). Apart from an improvement of writing skills and vocabulary acquisition, extensive reading offers other advantages, which Hedge (2003) summarizes in the following way: “Learners can build their language competence, progress in their reading ability, become more independent in their studies, acquire cultural knowledge, and develop confidence and motivation to carry on learning” (p. 204 – 205).

3.3.1.2 Integrating skills

The spread of the communicative approach has, to some extent, lead to a weakening of the boundaries between different skills; however, language use and language learning have traditionally been viewed as consisting of four different skill areas, namely speaking, listening, reading and writing (cf. Johnson and Morrow 1981: 67). It is of major importance to include each of the four skills in the EFL classroom as, firstly, students will need all of the four skills when communicating in the foreign language outside of the classroom and, secondly, as is claimed in the UNESCO’s Sourcebook, the differences between students’ learner types need to be considered, as each individual prefers to learn in a different way and “some prefer to listen, others to read, and still others to participate more actively” (UNESCO 2012, online).

Byrne (1981) describes the idea of integrating language skills in the following way:

The process of integrating language skills involves linking them together in such a way that what has been learnt and practised through the exercise of one skill is reinforced and perhaps extended through further language activities which bring one or more of the other skills into use. (p. 108)

She then goes on to discuss the fact that teaching sequences tend to follow certain patterns when it comes to integration of skills, which have to some extent emerged because they are convenient for the teacher but do not necessarily mirror the way in which different skills relate to each other in real life. For example, traditional skill integration has a tendency of beginning with speaking or listening activities and then proceeding to reading and writing

tasks. However, Byrne (1981) claims that “reading, for instance, is just as likely to lead to speaking as the reverse” (p. 108) and that it is crucial to link activities focusing on different skills in a way which feels natural to the students. In order to illustrate how integrating skills could work outside of the restrictions of traditional patterns, she provides the following example:

To give a simple example, if we read an ad for a job in the newspaper, we may discuss it with someone (and perhaps leave it at that) or we may ring up and enquire about the job. We may then write a letter of application for the job, which will in turn lead onto somebody else’s reading the letter and replying to it. Thus, we have a nexus of READING → SPEAKING (+ LISTENING) → WRITING → READING → WRITING (p. 108).

In this example, she shows how students can be given a reason for using each of the skills as they exercise each of the skills for a specific purpose. According to Byrne, enriching the use of individual skills with a purpose does not only increase students’ motivation to exercise the skill but also enables them to gain a deeper understanding with regard to communicative functions of different instances of language use (cf. 1981: 108-109).

The approach of integrating skills can be combined with a focus on content or a CLIL approach and can be structured around a specific topic. With regard to using a particular topic as a starting point, Raimes (1983) points out:

Wherever we originally get a topic – from students, from a book, or from our own invention – the first thing we should consider is not which one assignment will be best but how many assignments we can develop so that out students can explore the subject as fully as possible. (p. 15).

She then mentions a variety of different activities, among which are reading a text, writing a letter or analysing a graph, and claims that “all of these can emerge from the same topic instead of one being about space travel and another about John and Mary’s picnic” (1983: 15). Her approach of providing a variety of tasks relating to the same topic shows how integrating skills can take place in the context of a lesson or sequence of lessons which focus on one specific topic area.

3.3.1.3 Task-based language teaching

In task-based teaching and learning of languages, “priority is given to getting something done through language rather than to practising predetermined language items” (Nkwetisama 2011: 55

115). By this definition, it becomes obvious that task-based language teaching is highly compatible with the principles underlying CLIL, as the focus is laid on actions carried out via the use of language instead of on the form and outer appearance of language. According to Van de Brenden (2007), a task is “an activity in which a person engages in order to attain an objective and which necessitates the use of language” (p. 4). The criterium of attaining an objective points to the fact that task-based language teaching facilitates meaningful communication as language is not used merely for the sake of practising language items regardless of whether or not there is a communicative setting in which the particular use of language is appropriate, but rather in order to achieve certain goals.

When creating sequences of tasks, it is important to take into consideration the so-called ‘task-dependency principle’, according to which teachers should “create whenever possible a Task 2 which can only be done if a Task 1 has been successfully completed” (Johnson 1981: 99). The reasons as to why task-dependency is crucial is that it increases students’ motivation to participate in the activities and, in terms of the productive skills, it adds to the students’ accountability with regard to the language they produce. If individual tasks are not related to each other, the consequences of producing insufficient language are limited to teacher correction or similar minor consequences; task-dependency, however, ensures that students have the opportunity to experience a phenomenon which they will have to deal with when using English outside of the classroom, namely that insufficient language production can have actual consequences for themselves and others. In relation to this aspect of task-dependency, Johnson (1981) states:

A difference between classroom and real world which can never be eradicated is that the former shields the student from the consequences of his mistakes. Street directions given wrongly in the classroom lead only to teacher correction; in the real world they result in someone getting lost. Task dependencies help to minimise this difference […].” (p. 99)

3.3.2 Reasons for choosing individual activities

In this section, the focus will be placed on the individual activities of the reading project and the didactic considerations of their design. The lessons of the reading project will be discussed chronologically, beginning with Lesson 1, and each lesson will be elaborated on with regard to all of its activities.

3.3.2.1 Lesson 1

The first lesson consists of three activities as well as a writing activity the students are supposed to complete as homework. The overall aim of the lesson is to introduce the students to the topic of the reading project, gain their attention and activate their pre-existing knowledge. Furthermore, they are familiarized with important words, phrases and concepts which they will benefit from throughout the entire project. In addition, the first lesson includes an activity which is dedicated to presenting the students with the books, one of which they are supposed to then choose and read.

What am I wearing today? This introductory activity is supposed to introduce students to the topic of fast fashion and raise their awareness with regard to where their clothes were produced. The students are asked to formulate questions and answer each other in the context of a fictional telephone survey. The basis for the design of the activity was a claim by Nazara (2011), according to whom, when it comes to speaking activities,

the main task of an instructor is to assist the student master the mechanical elements of language (pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary), elements of language functions, and elements of sociocultural norms by providing an authentic exercises that prepares them to interact in real communication. (p. 33)

The worksheet the students receive in order to do the task contains a chart which scaffolds the activity. It not only provides the students with input in terms of vocabulary but also functions as an orientational tool with regard to the grammar and language functions they are supposed to produce. It clearly indicates to them that they are required to formulate questions and answers and thus generate grammatical and functional speech units accordingly. The fictional context of a telephone survey adds the aspect of sociocultural norms, as it necessitates language use appropriate for the situational context.

There are two reasons as to why the task is designed as a pair work activity. Firstly, pair or group work allows for more speaking time on part of each individual student. As Nazara (2011) points out,

Assigning students to discuss interesting topics in pair or group work (up to three students) is possibly a good alternative. Dealing with thirty students in a speaking class is tough. But dealing with fifteen pairs or ten groups of three will make the classroom more manageable and every student keep being active. (p. 37) 57

Secondly, studies have shown that speaking activities are more effective when they are designed as pair or group work due to the fact that students feel more comfortable speaking in those task types than when they have to share their opinions in front of the whole class. Riasati (2012) conducted research which supports this thesis as it found that five out of seven interviewees preferred speaking in pairs or groups. One of the students who participated in the study explained her preference by stating that “I prefer to speak with my classmates because I have less stress. I’m more comfortable, but if I want to speak individually I get anxious because I feel everybody is listening to me” (p. 1289). Riasati draws the conclusion that activities which allow for speaking with one or multiple peers “create a more relaxed atmosphere in classroom, reduce anxiety and thus result in an increase in both quantity and quality of practice” (p. 1289) as compared to activities which require students to talk individually. Based on these findings, the decision was made to design the introductory task of the reading project put forward in this thesis as a pair work activity.

The problems with fast fashion This sequence of activities is structured around a short video which is the basis for the final listening activity. In the pre-listening phase, the students do a short brainstorming activity with a partner and then fill in a text with blanks, an activity which Dale and Tanner (2012) call “mind the gap” (p. 133). According to the CEFR, activities in the pre-listening or “preparatory” phase are about “creating expectations, providing necessary background knowledge, activating schematic knowledge, and filtering specific linguistic difficulties.” (Council of Europe 2011: 165, online). While the brainstorming activity is primarily concerned with the creation of expectations as well as activating previous knowledge, the gap-filling activity provides the students with knowledge, concepts and vocabulary that will help them to process the video’s content.

When the students watch the video for the first time, they are asked to listen for general understanding; while watching the video a second time, they are required to listen for specific pieces of information and complete a while-listening task. According to Schröpel (2012), this approach is common in EFL classrooms with regard to listening activities. She claims that even though this procedure is unnatural and thus leads to a lack of authenticity of situation, it is justified as the repetition of the listening process serves as a substitute for the opportunity to ask for clarification which speakers have in real-life communicative situations (cf. 2012: 42- 43). The while-listening task requires students to answer multiple choice questions, to the 58

answers of which so-called “distractors” have been added. Schröpel (2012) describes distractors as “answers which are similar to a correct answer, and therefore plausible but, nevertheless, wrong” (p. 48) and claims that, firstly, the use of distractors facilitates a higher level of concentration on part of the students and, secondly, students need to be familiar with this kind of tasks as they are often included in exams of high-level education (cf. 2012: 48). During the post-listening phase, the students answer three follow-up questions which refer both to the content of the video and the students’ opinions, and require critical thinking.

Introduction of books This activity has a double-layered purpose: Firstly, it is supposed to spark students’ interest and curiosity and thus increase their motivation to read the books and, secondly, it provides them with the information necessary in order to decide which of the books they want to read. According to Tomaschitz (2017), providing students with an introduction to books they are supposed to read does not only activate pre-existing knowledge but also gives students the opportunity to establish an emotional connection with the book. With regard to how this introduction could be designed, she suggests using the title, the cover and the blurbs of the books as they are “great devices for the pre-reading phase” (p. 27). Collie and Slater (1996) claim that “the first imperative is usually to try and draw the learners quickly ‘into’ the text, so that they find it interesting and want to continue reading it on their own” (p. 16-17) One of the suggestions they provide in terms of creating students’ interest is using the title and cover design. The approach which has been taken in the reading project put forward in this thesis is using the title, the cover designs, the blurbs as well as two very short excerpts per book. The reason for including the excerpts as an addition to what Tomaschitz as well as Collie and Slater suggest is that it ensures that the students are aware of the respective styles each book is written in before making a choice regarding which book they want to read.

Homework: A living wage Content-wise, the purpose of this activity is to make students more familiar with the concept of a “living wage”. The concept was mentioned and explained in the gap-filling task, which is part of the second activity of this lesson, and was also mentioned in the video which followed. However, as Folse (2008) points out, referring to a claim made by Swain (1993), “comprehensible input alone is not sufficient for the large number of vocabulary items that

learners must master to improve their language ability. The input needs to be noticed so that it can become intake” (p. 16). In view of this consideration, it makes sense to confront the students with the concept one more time and require them to mentally engage with it on a deeper level. The decision to design a writing task as homework was based on the fact that Lesson 1 would otherwise not have included an opportunity for students to improve their writing skills, which would have contravened the aforementioned principle of skill integration. The text type was chosen with the text types of the Austrian standardized A-levels in mind, which feature letters as one of the six text types which might be relevant to the exam (cf. BIFIE, online). One further consideration which was essential to the design of the activity was its adherence to the principle of “real-life writing” as defined by Dale and Tanner (cf. 2012: 224), which will be discussed in more depth in the discussion on the activity “Writing a letter to Benjamin Powell”.

3.3.2.2 Lesson 2

The second lesson begins with an engaging speaking activity which allows for students to reflect on their personal values. The majority of the remaining lesson as well as the homework, which again is a writing task, give the students the opportunity to engage with complex concepts, gain a deep understanding of them and share their feelings and opinions with regard to the concepts. A listening activity provides them with additional information and ensures that the concept of skill integration is adhered to.

Introductory speaking activity The first activity of this lesson is designed so as to constitute an engaging and motivating start to the lesson and give students the opportunity to share their thoughts and beliefs as well as to reflect on their own values. The basis for the speaking activity is a graph depicting a pattern of consumption typical of Western societies. The students are asked to discuss the graph and, in pairs, reflect on the question what happiness means to them personally. The task generates not only an information gap but also an opinion gap as defined by Klippel (1985): “Opinion gaps are created by exercises incorporating controversial texts or ideas, which require the participants to describe and perhaps defend their views on these ideas” (p. 4). According to Klippel, speaking activities can be used as a vehicle in order to facilitate processes which make students more aware of their values and of aspects concerning their culture and 60

personalities (cf. 1985: 5). This particular speaking activity was designed with those considerations in mind, as mentally engaging with the values one’s actions are based on is an essential part of developing sustainable thinking. In this context, Klippel (1985) mentions the so-called “values clarification approach” which lays the focus in the classroom on supporting students in developing and, consequently, living according to values. She claims that “as regards the language items practised in these exercises, speech acts like expressing likes and dislikes, stating one's opinions and giving/asking for reasons occur throughout” (p. 88). It is those exact speech acts which students are required to produce in the course of this introductory speaking activity.

Describing a concept In this activity, the students first discuss concepts with a partner and then describe them to peers, who need the information in order to fill in the concepts in a text with missing words. In this part of the activity, an information gap facilitates communication among the students. According to Dale and Tanner (2012), what is characteristic for activities which function on the basis of information gaps is that “each learner is missing certain information required to complete a task and has to communicate with another learner or learners to find it out” (p. 177). Requiring the students to then add the concepts to a text in which they have been erased ensures a deeper level of mental engagement with the concepts and also enables them to see the concepts used in context and thus gain a better understanding of their meanings.

The students are then asked to draw a concept map in which they are supposed to indicate the relationships between the concepts they have dealt with in the course of the activity. Drawing concept maps belongs to the category of semantic mapping, in which, according to Alyousef (2006), “categories and associations are displayed visually in a diagram” (p. 68). Carrell, Pharis and Liberto (1989) claim that semantic mapping is not only beneficial in terms of vocabulary acquisition but can also be used as a pre- or post-reading activity (cf. 1989: 651). In this case, however, the activity can be considered as a pre-listening activity, as by drawing the concept maps the students become more familiar with concepts they need in order to understand the content of the following listening activity. Another reason as to why the drawing of a concept map was included in the activity is that it might cater for students who belong to the category of analytic or visual learners.

The true cost trailer The previous activity – “Describing a concept” – has provided the students with knowledge on the vocabulary and concepts they need in order to complete this listening task. The students are shown the trailer of the documentary “The true cost”, which can be considered as a very short clip. Exposing students to video materials of varying length can be beneficial as listening to longer videos “requires more processing and there is an additional memory load, risk of fatigue and distraction” (Council of Europe 2011: 166, online), which might not be suitable for students whose listening skills have not yet fully developed.

Similar to the listening activity in the previous lesson, the students are asked to listen for general understanding while watching the trailer for the first time. Then, before watching it for a second time, they are asked to complete a True/False exercise with a partner. As Schröpel (2012) points out, True/False exercises are relatively easy to complete and thus have a positive effect on the self-confidence of students with regard to their listening abilities (cf. 2012: 48). The reason why the students work with a partner in doing the task is that, as is explained in the CEFR,

a small group work arrangement involving cooperative listening/reading is more likely to result in successful task completion than individual work, as learners can share the processing load and obtain assistance and feedback on their understanding from one another. (Council of Europe 2011: 165, online)

The students first complete the task and are then shown the video for a second time in order to check their answers. Being confronted with the task before re-watching the video can be of advantage concerning students’ motivation because, as Field (2002) suggests, if there is disagreement on which answer is correct students might be more interested in finding out what the correct answer is (cf. 2002: 247). After checking their answers, the students are provided with a follow-up question as a post-listening activity, which allows for them to cognitively engage with the trailer’s content on a deeper level.

The Ecological Footprint The aim of this activity is to have the students really understand the concept of the Ecological Footprint. They receive not only definitions but also a visualisation of the footprints, which they can touch and rearrange, and which is thus beneficial for both visual and kinaesthetic learners. Furthermore, the activity can be said to appeal to students who think analytically as

it involves interpreting visual data. The True/False activity which the students are supposed to do with the help of the footprints ensures that they really engage with the matter and can be used as an indicator of whether they have grasped the concept.

One of the reasons why it is of major importance to familiarize the students with the concept of the ecological footprint as thoroughly as possible is that they will later be required to talk about the concept in a speaking activity. According to Riasati (2012), it is crucial to provide students with background knowledge on a topic before asking them to discuss it, as their willingness to participate in speaking activities increases if the topic is familiar to them. One of the students who was interviewed in the course of the research conducted by Riasati and his colleagues stated: “If I have enough information about a topic, I really like to talk about it. But when I don’t have any information or enough information, I don’t like to speak” (2012: 1291). This goes to show that the extensive True/False activity is justified as it is needed in order to prepare the students for the following activity.

If all the people all over the world This activity is useful because it can be considered as an indicator with regard to whether or not the students have fully understood the concept of the Ecological Footprint. Moreover, it requires students to use conditionals in meaningful contexts and thus combines content learning with a focus on grammar. In terms of content, the activity allows for the students to realize how their lifestyles are related to environmental problems. The task requires them to think critically as well as analytically and to use their imagination in order to come up with possible scenarios. As has been mentioned in the previous section of this thesis, critical and creative thinking are major tools in the creation of a more sustainable society. Furthermore, the activity facilitates the use of spoken language as students are asked to talk about a topic which is relevant to them, namely the lifestyle of Austrian citizens and thus their own way of living. According to Klippel (1985), “talking about something which affects them personally is eminently motivating for students” (p. 5), which means that asking students to critically reflect on their own lifestyle should lead to their engaged participation in the speaking activity.

Homework The students are asked to explain the concept of the Ecological Footprint in the context of replying to a fictional Facebook message. The task thus adheres to the principle of task dependency, as the students will not be able to complete it unless they have successfully completed the activity on the Ecological Footprint. Moreover, the task combines a reading and writing task and enriches the lesson with an opportunity for the students to practice their writing skills, which means that the activity is essential in order for the lesson to comply with the principle of integrating skills. As the students are likely to reply to Facebook messages on a regular basis, the task can be said to authentic with regard to the situation of text production.

3.3.2.3 Lesson 3

The third lesson enables students to share their opinions on the parts of the books they have read so far. Before they then go on to completing a listening and a writing task, they are prepared by engaging with important words and phrases in the context of a game. Content- wise, the lesson deals with the concept of sweatshops and thus with the negative social impact of the fast fashion industry.

Let’s talk about This is the first activity which enables the students to share their opinions and feelings on what they have read so far. They take turns in answering questions which are designed to be meaningful and facilitate the production of long utterances. The questions are concerned with either the characters and plots of the books or topics related to the books, some of which are highly controversial and allow for students to talk about their personal points of view. In this activity, asking for students’ opinions is preferred over asking them for facts, which is due to the reason that, according to a study conducted by Dalton-Puffer (2006), student responses are more likely to be minimalist when they are asked for facts as compared to their beliefs and opinions (cf. 2006 as cited in Dalton-Puffer n.d.: 11-12). In this activity, the students do not discuss the questions but rather answer them individually, which can be beneficial because, as Castillo Negrete (2008) claims, “all interpretations need to be acknowledged so that students become more self confident in the expression of their opinions” (p. 4). Collie and Slater (1996) also emphasize the importance of enabling students to come to their own conclusions with regard to literature as they claim that their activities are designed to “help students to 64

acquire the confidence to develop, express and value their own response. Through this process, we hope that they will become less dependent on received opinion and therefore more interested in and more able to assess other perspectives” (p. 9).

The true cost vocabulary According to Hinkel (2018), “when teaching integrated L2 skills in general, […] pre-teaching the needed vocabulary and grammar constructions and providing examples can often help learners manage the demands generated by the process of learning to improve multiple L2 skills” (p. 4). With this consideration in mind, the activity was created in order to prepare the students for the subsequent listening as well as writing activities. The choice to implement a game of memory as a vocabulary task was made based on a claim by Folse (2008), according to whom “the most successful vocabulary activities are those that allow students to accomplish three goals: (1) focus on the vocabulary, (2) experience multiple retrievals of the vocabulary, and (3) develop successful vocabulary learning strategies” (p. 15). The memory cards contain significant words and phrases on the one hand and their meanings and definitions on the other hand, which means that throughout the entire game students’ focus is on the vocabulary they are supposed to memorize. As each of the cards will be chosen and read through multiple times, the activity can be said to include multiple retrievals of each of the words. Lastly, playing a game of memory has the potential to show students that vocabulary can be learnt in a variety of ways and can even be enjoyable. If students realise that they benefit from the activity language-wise, they might decide to apply the strategy in the future and create their own sets of memory cards for learning vocabulary.

The true cost The students are asked to watch a short clip and take notes, filling in speech bubbles next to the pictures of three people who talk in the video. The idea behind providing students with worksheets which show three of the individuals who will appear in the video is to spark the students’ interest in what those people will say and thus make them curious and gain their attention. Moreover, the activity’s design is supposed to draw the students’ attention to the utterances of those three people while watching the video, because the next activity requires the students to take on the viewpoint of one of these three individuals. This kind of note- taking can be considered as an authentic activity due to the fact that, as Raimes (1983) claims, 65

in real life, when we need to listen and write, it is not always possible to write down every word we hear. People just do not talk at dictation speed. On the telephone, in the classroom, in everyday conversation, we write down a summary of what the speaker says, picking out the important information. (p. 78)

The activity trains the students’ listening skills while also providing them with visual input. Irrespective of whether the clip is shown on YouTube or whether any other source is used, it can be said to have the positive effects which Watkins and Wilkins (2011) attribute to the use of YouTube videos, namely, that they

can enhance conversation, listening, and pronunciation skills. YouTube videos can also be utilized as realia to stimulate cultural lessons, enhance exposure to World Englishes, and promote authentic vocabulary development. Even reading and writing activities can be structured around YouTube videos. (p. 113)

Writing a letter to Benjamin Powell This writing task adheres to the principle of task-dependency and gives a purpose to the previous activity, in which students had to take notes they now use in order to write the letter. First, the students are shown a short part of a video as a stimulus, which can be regarded as a listening activity and shows how the skills of listening to an interview and writing a letter in response can be integrated. The activity can be categorized as “real-life writing” as defined by Dale and Tanner (2012):

In real life, we usually write texts for a particular ‘audience’ (a friend, the tax man, a newspaper), and we know what type of text we are trying to write (a magazine article, an email, etc. (…). We also have a reason to write. This is what we mean by ‘realistic’ writing. (p. 224)

In the case of this writing activity, the students are required to write a text which belongs to the text-type of “letter” and is addressed at a specific audience, namely, Benjamin Powell. The reason as to why they write the letter is to discuss the claims Powell made in the course of an interview. In this sense, the task can be said to facilitate realistic writing. Taking on another individual’s perspective enables the students to feel a sense of anonymity in voicing their opinions and, moreover, it can support them in developing the ability to see through another person’s eyes which, as has been discussed earlier in this thesis, strengthens abilities of empathy.

3.3.2.4 Lesson 4

The third lesson combines two listening activities on the topic of river pollution caused by the fashion industry with a variety of vocabulary and grammar activities. During the second part of the lesson, the students do a writing task which is based on the concept of collaborative writing as described by Lehnen (cf. 2017).

River pollution – listening activities This listening activity does not start with pre-teaching of vocabulary, even though some of the words might not be known by the students while watching the video for the first time. The decision to not include a pre-listening activity focusing on the acquisition of vocabulary was based on the consideration that, according to Tomaschitz (2017), it is not advisable to always teach unknown words and phrases prior to reading tasks as students become accustomed to being provided with the vocabulary beforehand and might thus no longer attempt to understand the content without help (cf. 2017: 34). Faerch and Kasper make a similar claim concerning listening activities, stating that, “if input is to function as intake to the learning of higher-level L2 material, learners need to experience comprehension problems” (1986: 270, as cited in Anderson and Lynch 1988: 35). Based on this assumption, the use of a pre- listening vocabulary task was abstained from in this activity.

After watching the video once, the students are asked to do a simple True/False exercise. The rationale behind choosing this simple type of activity instead of a more complex multiple- choice task is that, as has been mentioned, the students were not provided with vocabulary before watching and, moreover, including relatively easy tasks can be beneficial in general. Schröpel (2012) mentions True/False exercises as an example for activities which can have a positive effect on students’ self-confidence with regard to their listening skills (cf. 2012: 48). While watching the video for a second time, the students are given a transcript of the text spoken in the video and are asked to fill in the missing words. This does not only guarantee variation in terms of the listening tasks of the lesson but is also positive as it ensures that multiple retrievals of significant words take place. As Folse (2008) points out, “rather than completing just one type of learning task multiple times, such as repeating a word, learners should interact with a word in different ways” (p. 16).

The students answer complex follow-up questions which facilitate meaningful communication as well as the exchange of their views and opinions. Then they watch another video which is 67

accompanied by a vocabulary exercise, a multiple-choice task as while-listening activity and another round of follow-up questions. According to Schröpel (2012), the post-listening phase should give students the opportunity to build “a relation between the text heard and their own lives and experiences” as well as to “express their own opinion with respect to the topic the text dealt with” (p. 49). The follow-up questions of both listening tasks were designed with these requirements in mind. Moreover, the second set of follow-up questions asks the students to compare the two videos with regard to their contents and the claims made concerning the origin of environmental issues. This question demands the evaluation of different sources and their credibility and thus fosters critical thinking.

India’s rivers and Austrian education For this activity, the students work in pairs and use the knowledge they have acquired during the previous listening activities in order to produce short reports in a collaborative writing setting. According to Lehnen (2017), cooperative writing concerns contexts and situations in which two or more individuals join in the production of a text. She claims that collaborative writing has advantages with regard to social learning and content learning as well as awareness and reflection concerning language. The students are asked to take on the roles of experts and write a report on whether or not the introduction of an additional educational module on river pollution in Austria is advisable. This task is beneficial not only because the text type of report is relevant in the context of the standardized written A-levels but also because writing about the usefulness of a fictional educational module gives students the opportunity to reflect on the educational module they are currently participating in.

3.3.2.5 Lesson 5

The first activity of this lesson gives students the opportunity to share their opinions on the plot, characters and topics of the books. The second activity consists of a reading activity which then leads to the formation of expert groups and a subsequent writing activity. The last activity of this lesson requires the students to conduct research and produce texts on alternatives to fast fashion in a group work setting.

Book club discussion In this activity, the students discuss questions concerning the books in small groups. Similar to the questions in the activity “Let’s talk”, the questions are meaningful and some of them refer to controversial topics, which is why they facilitate long answers and communication. Again, students are asked for their personal beliefs and opinions. The advantage of discussing the books in groups is that, as Collie and Slater (1996) point out, “a group with its various sets of life experiences can act as a rich marshalling device to enhance the individual’s awareness both of his or her own responses and of the world created by the literary work” (p. 9). Adding a one-time activity such as this one constitutes an alternative to implementing literature circles taking place on a regular basis, which is the concept this activity is based on. Similar to literature circles as described by Tomaschitz (2017), the activity provides students with the opportunity to discuss their opinions, encourages cooperative language learning and is advantageous for students “because they will suddenly notice possible arguments and interpretations that they would have missed otherwise” (p. 62). The activity can also be considered as facilitating social learning, which is “learning by mirroring one’s own ideas, views, values and perspectives with those of others” (Wals 2011: 181).

The true cost of fast fashion This activity requires the students to first read texts and do exercises which ensure they have understood the content as well as important words, and then get together as expert groups and write texts in a collaborative writing setting. The reading activity thus serves as a pre-writing activity and the two tasks are linked as demanded by the task-dependency principle. The texts were chosen on the basis of the criteria provided by Nuttall, according to whom reading materials need to be suitable in terms of their content, exploitable with regard to particular teaching purposes as well as readable in terms of their difficulty and complexity (cf. Nuttall as cited in Berardo 2006: 62 – 63). After reading the texts, the students complete a simple exercise concerning words and phrases they might not be familiar with and are then asked to summarize the texts in three sentences. According to Hudson (2010), a study conducted by Walters (2000) showed that summarizing a text after reading can have a positive effect on the level of comprehension (cf. 2010: 282). Raimes (1983) also emphasizes the advantages of summarizing by stating that the students

have not only to find out what the main ideas are but also to be able to express them in their own words. This ability of the language learner to understand concepts, process them, and restate them in his own words is a major goal of the language-learning process.” (p. 58)

The students then get together in expert groups and use the knowledge they have acquired while reading the texts in order to produce reports in collaborative writing, a concept they are already familiar with from the previous lesson. The method of expert groups which is used in this activity is an adaptation of a suggestion by Dale and Tanner (cf. 2012: 113). The fact that each student in the respective expert groups is equipped with information the other students are unaware of creates an information gap which requires them to collaborate and communicate. Jones (1992) bases the design of his communicative tasks on the same idea, stating the following:

The 56 communication activities at the back of the book give different information to each partner in a group. There is an ‘information gap’ between you: your purpose is to find out what your partners know and to tell them what you know. (Introduction)

Alternatives to fast fashion – research activity In this activity, the students are required to answer questions by conducting research in small groups. This approach is advantageous because it allows for the in-class presentation of five different concepts related to sustainability and four different text types. The text types – online article, invitation, blog entry and text for a brochure – were chosen because they are the text types featured in the standardized written Matura in Austria (cf. bifie, online). The introduction of different concepts related to a sustainable approach towards fashion is advisable because, as Arbuthnott (2009) claims, “ESD programs should include specific strategies, such as selecting particular behavioural targets or providing model actions, to target behaviour change” (p. 161). In order to enable students to relate to the model actions presented in this activity, some of the questions included in the task refer to regional aspects and the students’ spheres of influence. In conducting the research, the students are required to use technology, which is one of the 21st century skills, and evaluate information, which enhances critical thinking skills. As they need to work together in order to finish the task, collaboration as well as communication are facilitated. Again, the students write in a collaborative writing setting as described by Lehnen (cf. 2017). The wording of the writing tasks provides the students with a fictional outside audience, which, according to Raimes

(1983), means that students “engage in a simulation game, a role-playing activity in writing. Pretending that they are in a specific situation, they write for a specific reader” (p. 18). This contextualisation of the writing process ensures that the students perceive their writing as having a communicative purpose as well as function.

3.3.2.6 Lesson 6

During the first 15 minutes of the lesson, the students finish the research and writing activity they began in the previous lesson. Then they engage in a role play which enables them to reflect on a variety of attitudes towards the fashion industry and to use the language skills they have gained in the course of the previous five lessons.

Alternatives to fast fashion – research activity During the first fifteen minutes of the lesson, the students are supposed to finish the writing activity they began working on in the previous lesson.

Who should pay the price? This activity combines a writing, a reading and a speaking/listening activity, the latter of them occurring in the form of a role play. The reason why a role-play was implemented into the reading project is that, according to Löffler and Kuntze (1979), a variety of goals can be pursued via the use of role plays. Among those goals is the creation of realistic communicative situations as well as of awareness concerning the communicative purpose of utterances and of how to perform them (cf. 1979: 29-30). In this activity, the students are first asked to write down descriptions of the characters who they will then embody in the fictitious talk show which sets the frame for the role play. The students are thus engaged in the design of the role-cards. According to Sturtridge (1981), providing a student with a role-card can be beneficial because the card

may describe in detail the personality or opinions of the character whose role he is taking. It may tell him how he feels to other members of the group or how to react to a particular situation if it arises. Certain types of interaction, including those less likely to be found in the usual classroom exchanges, can be built into the simulation through the role-card. Hostility or stubbornness which requires strong persuasion can be included. (p. 129) 71

In the case of this activity, the role-cards are supposed to ensure that different opinions and perspectives are considered during the role play. The involvement of the students in the creation of the role-cards has them engage in a creative process and provides them with an opportunity for improving their language skills. The fact that the students swap the role-cards they have produced and use the description of another character written by their peers as the basis for their embodiment during the role-play adds meaning to the texts they are asked to produce.

3.3.2.7 Lesson 7

The last session of this reading project is dedicated to providing students with the opportunity to present and discuss their results of both the research activity and their individual 100-point- projects. As with regard to the research activity, the students do a task which provides them with a deeper understanding of the text types which were produced. In terms of the 100-point- project, the students present their results to their peers.

Alternatives to fast fashion – presenting the results This activity requires the students to analyse the texts which were produced during the two previous lessons with regard to the texts’ purposes and intended readers, their layout and structure as well as their register and stylistic features. The engagement with text type features is beneficial not only because the students need to be familiar with the text types which are relevant for the standardized written A-levels, but also because dealing with a variety of genres ensures that “the values and worldviews embodied in the texts become more visible and available to the learner, and thus more open to discussion, criticism, negotiation, and challenge” (Hudson 2010: 222).

Hudson (2010) describes an educational module created by Henry and Roseberry (1998) which was concerned with the genre of tourist information and to some extent served as an example towards which the design of this activity was oriented. In the module, the students received six example texts and were supposed to first identify the reoccurring rhetorical moves and then produce texts themselves (cf. 2010: 222). The activities which were created for this reading project consist of the same elements; however, the students are subjected to them in a different order. The students are provided with an opportunity to engage with the

text types’ characteristics and reflect on their own production of the respective text type after they have already made an attempt at writing a text themselves. The reason for sequencing the tasks in this way is that students might already be familiar with the text types to some extent and should thus be given the opportunity to self-assess whether or not they are able to produce it.

100-point-project – presenting the results The theoretical basis for the design of the task “100-point-project”, which serves as the assessment tool of the reading project, is the theory of multiple intelligences Howard Gardner proposed in 1983. According to Brualdi (1996), Gardner put forward the idea that there are seven different kinds of intelligence, namely logical-mathematical, linguistic, spatial, musical, bodily-kinaesthetic and personal intelligences (cf. 1996: 2). The implication this theory has on teaching and assessing is that teachers should take into account the fact that students differ in their specific skills, talents and learning styles (cf. 1996: 3-4). The 100-point-project, which is used as assessment activity in the reading project discussed in this thesis, is loosely based on an activity suggested by Dale and Tanner (2012) in their book on CLIL activities. In order to “offer learners an assessment that suits their type of multiple intelligences” (p. 260), they recommend creating a variety of tasks targeting different intelligences the students can choose from. They also provide a chart which shows ideas for such assessment tasks and how each of them is related to Gardner’s intelligences (cf. Dale and Tanner 2012: 261). The tasks used in the 100-point-project were designed in a way which not only allows for different learner types to choose assessment tasks reflecting their intelligences, but also facilitates creativity and language use. During the last lesson of the reading project, the students are given the opportunity to present their results to the teacher and their peers. The informal setting in which the presentation of the results takes place guarantees that the students have the opportunity to compare their own results with those of their peers and self-assess their performance without feeling pressure or compromising themselves.

4 The Research Methodology

In this section, the considerations underlying the design of the research will be discussed. First, the purpose of the study as well as the research questions will be explained and then the research design will be elaborated on in detail. The question as to why a questionnaire was used will be answered, before the design of the questionnaire will be discussed in terms of its length, the language used, its structure and layout and the decision to guarantee participants’ anonymity. Then, the questionnaire items will be presented: After describing the questionnaire’s welcome text and final remarks, the types of questions which were used as well as the content of the individual question groups will be discussed. Subsequently, the piloting phase of the questionnaire, the participants and the way in which the questionnaires were administered will be dealt with. The last two parts of this section will be dedicated to outlining how the data was processes and analysed as well as explaining the ethical considerations the questionnaire design was based on.

4.1 The Research Questions and the Purpose of the Study

As has been mentioned multiple times throughout this thesis’ literature review, ESD and thus teaching towards sustainability is supposed to be implemented at all levels of both formal and informal education and, due to ESD’s interdisciplinary nature, should be made a crucial part of all school subjects. The study which will be put forward in the following sections has a multi-layered objective: Firstly, it is concerned with exploring whether EFL teachers feel a responsibility to incorporate teaching towards sustainability in the EFL classroom and whether they consider the EFL classroom as an environment which is suitable for the engagement with issues related to sustainability. Secondly, the study aims at finding out in how far EFL teachers consider Young Adult Literature as a useful tool for teaching towards sustainability in the EFL classroom. The third objective of this study is to acquire feedback on a specific reading project (see appendix) which was designed in order to thematize the social and environmental impact of the fast fashion industry in the EFL classroom via the use of Young Adult Literature. The feedback provided by EFL teachers in the context of this study is supposed to allow for the optimization of the reading project in order to make it more efficient in terms of the learning processes it facilitates with regard to both language skills as well as values of and knowledge and skills for sustainability. 74

To summarize, the research questions can be formulated as follows:

1. To what extent do EFL teachers believe that the EFL classroom is suitable for teaching towards sustainability? 2. To what extent do EFL teachers believe that YAL is suitable for teaching towards sustainability in the EFL classroom? 3. How did EFL teachers evaluate the Reading Project put forward in this thesis?

According to O’Leary (2010), questions that need to be considered when it comes to research questions are whether the knowledge they convey is relevant, in how far they can be said to be of societal significance and whether answering them might promote beneficial changes in the respective field (cf. 2010: 57). With regard to the aim of this study, it can be said that investigating teachers’ opinions on the suitability of the EFL classroom for implementing teaching towards sustainability is relevant because it should be explored whether the content of various documents mentioned in this thesis’ literature review as well as the UNESCO’s Decade for Sustainable Development is mirrored in teachers’ perceptions concerning ESD in the language classroom. Moreover, the relationship between YAL and teaching towards sustainability needs to be explored in more depth in order to evaluate whether Young Adult Literature can serve as a beneficial tool in ESD pedagogy. With regard to receiving feedback on the reading project, this survey not only plays a vital role in improving this particular reading project, which could subsequently be made available to other teachers and used as a source of valuable teaching materials, but it also provides insights into important features and characteristics of reading projects on sustainability in general.

4.2 Research Design

4.2.1 Using a questionnaire

The study was conducted using a questionnaire, which, according to Brown (2001), can be defined as “any written instruments that present respondents with a series of questions or statements to which they are to react either by writing out their answers or selecting from among existing answers” (p. 6).

It cannot be denied that the use of questionnaires as research tool is associated with a variety of disadvantages, some of which might compromise the validity of research findings in general as well as the findings of this particular study. As Dörnyei (2003) points out, the 75

simplistic formulation of questions which is required in order for questionnaires to be applicable tends to encourage the collection of superficial data (cf. 2003: 10-13). Other factors which might influence the outcome of a study and thus need to be considered concern the questionnaires’ respondents. Apart from the fact that they might lack in reliability and motivation, their answers might also be a product of the so-called ‘social desirability bias’, which Dörnyei (2003) describes in the following way: “Questionnaire items are often 'transparent, ' that is, respondents can have a fairly good guess about what the desirable/acceptable/expected answer is, and some of them will provide this response even if it is not true” (p. 12). Furthermore, respondents might give inaccurate answers due to deceiving themselves or because of either the so-called ‘acquiescence bias’ or a phenomenon called the ‘halo effect’. The ‘acquiescence bias’ refers to the fact that there are people who in case of uncertainty would rather agree with a statement than respond negatively. The halo effect, on the other hand, refers to the possibility that respondents might overgeneralize in answering the questions and thus answer individual questions based on their overall attitude towards the topic. The last aspect which could have a negative influence on a questionnaire’s validity is that respondents might not put an adequate amount of thought into answering the questions due to becoming fatigued in the process of filling out the questionnaire (cf. Dörnyei 2003).

With regard to this particular questionnaire, especially the factors of the social desirability bias and the role fatigue might play in the respondents’ engagement with the questionnaire were taken into consideration. As teachers might be of the impression that they are supposed to place a high value on sustainability and implement ESD into their teaching, it was of major importance to formulate the questions in a way which would prevent the occurrence of a social desirability bias by giving respondents the impression that either way of answering the questions was equally acceptable. The factor of fatigue was considered in so far as the questionnaire was kept as short and engaging as possible.

The reason as to why a questionnaire was used irrespective of its multiple disadvantages is the method’s efficiency with regard to time, effort and monetary resources. Dörnyei (2003) describes the appeal of using questionnaires by stating that,

by administering a questionnaire to a group of people, one can collect a huge amount of information in less than an hour, and the personal investment required will be a fraction of what would have been needed for, say, interviewing the same number of people. (p. 9)

Furthermore, the usage of a questionnaire as research tool is suitable in the case of this study because the data which it aims at collecting refers to the teachers’ personal views, beliefs and perceptions (cf. Gass & Mackey 2005: 92). The decision to use an online questionnaire added to the questionnaire’s efficiency and also simplified the storage and analysis of data.

4.2.2 Design of the Questionnaire

4.2.2.1 Length

One of the aspects which was given consideration before the actual creation of the questionnaire was its length and the time respondents would have to sacrifice in order to participate in the study. Dörnyei (2003) emphasizes the importance of limiting the length of questionnaires by stating that,

when we design a questionnaire, the general temptation is always to cover too much ground by asking everything that might turn out to be interesting. This must be resisted: in questionnaire design less is often more because long questionnaires can become counterproductive. (p. 17-18)

Due to the wide range of questions which were supposed to be covered by the questionnaire, it became obvious that one of the risks in designing the questionnaire would be that it might become too lengthy and thus fatigue respondents. In the case of this particular study, another factor which had to be considered with regard to time management is that in order for the respondents to be able to give meaningful answers to the questionnaire’s items, they had to first engage with the individual activities of the reading project, which they also needed a significant amount of time for. It thus seemed to make sense to construct a questionnaire the completion of which would take no longer than twenty minutes, not taking into account the time participants might need in order to familiarize themselves with the reading project to the extent necessary for them to be able to answer the questions. The questionnaire was designed with this time frame in mind, even though this approach meant that, time-wise, the demand on participants was relatively high and thus a high drop-out rate was to be expected.

4.2.2.2 Language

As the participants in this study are EFL teachers who are currently working in the profession, it can be assumed that their language skills would be sufficient to fill out the questionnaire if 77

it was in English. However, in order to avoid participants’ fatigue as well as high drop-out rates, the decision was made to design the questionnaire in German, which can be assumed to be the mother tongue of a majority of the participants.

4.2.2.3 Structure and layout

The fact that the questionnaire was created online, using the tools made available on the website LimeSurvey, had a strong influence on the considerations which were made with regard to the questionnaire’s structure and layout. The individual items were grouped and with the help of LimeSurvey, different sections were created and clearly marked. With regard to the questionnaire’s sections, one of the most helpful pieces of advice, which the questionnaire used for this study was oriented towards, is by Sudman and Bradburn (1983), who state that:

Perhaps the most common mistake of the beginner in questionnaire construction is to crowd questions together in the hope of making the questionnaire look short. ... While length is important, the respondent's perception of the difficulty of the task is even more important on self-administered questionnaires. A less crowded questionnaire with substantial white space looks easier and generally results in higher cooperation and fewer errors. (p. 24)

On the basis of this claim, the decision was made to include more sections with fewer items each in order to keep the drop-out rate as minimal as possible. For each section, a short description of the aspects of the topic that would be covered was provided and highlighted in colour. Apart from that, no colours were used so as to not have the design of the questionnaire appear chaotic. Numerical and alphabetical indicators were used in order to structure the individual items. Moreover, a progress bar was included in order to keep respondents informed on how far along in the process of filling out the questionnaire they were.

4.2.2.4 Anonymity

As has been mentioned, the phenomenon of social desirability bias having an influence on the findings of this study needed to be prevented. Teachers might be reluctant to give accurate answers concerning their teaching methods and approaches to teaching in general and their approaches to teaching towards sustainability in particular, if they feel like their own approaches might be considered as insufficient by colleagues and society as a whole. It thus 78

made sense to base the questionnaire on the concept of anonymity in order to encourage openness and honesty among the participants and thus receive more accurate answers. The respondents were informed of the fact that the questionnaire was based on the principle of anonymity both in the e-mail when they were first approached and in the welcome text of the online questionnaire. It was emphasized several times in order to ensure that the respondents were aware of the fact that neither them nor their schools or other personal background information could be identified due to them filling out the questionnaire.

4.2.3 Questionnaire items

4.2.3.1 Welcome text and final remarks

The nine question groups of the questionnaire are framed by a short welcome text as well as a short section dedicated to final remarks. The design of the welcome text was oriented towards Dörnyei’s (2003) suggestion as to what should be included in a survey’s opening text (cf. 2003: 26/90). Accordingly, it consists of a description of what the study and thus the questionnaire are about, reassurance that the data gathered will be treated confidentially and that there are no “right” or “wrong” answers as well as information on what participants need to do if they want to be provided with the study’s findings or the entire diploma thesis. Furthermore, the welcome text contains words of appreciation for the participants and information on the time which will be needed in order to complete the questionnaire. After the participants finished the questionnaire, they were confronted with a short text dedicated to final remarks. This text also contained words of appreciation and, furthermore, informed the respondents of the option to provide further information that they might find useful but was not covered by the questionnaire via e-mail. This idea was based on a suggestion by Gillham (2000), according to whom, it makes sense to implement an open question such as the following: “We have tried to make this questionnaire as comprehensive as possible but you may feel that there are things we have missed out. Please write what you think below, using an extra page if necessary” (p. 34-35). The final remarks also point to the option of being provided with the study’s findings or the entire diploma thesis and, moreover, contain contact information which can be used if questions of any kind should occur.

4.2.3.2 Question types

The question type which is most frequently used in the questionnaire is the so-called Likert scale, which is a specific type of rating scale offering multiple possible answers to each question (cf. Dörnyei 2003: 37). The answers respondents get to choose from vary, depending on the questions’ content, and include spectra from “I strongly agree” to “I strongly disagree”, “very suitable” to “not at all suitable”, “very important” to “not at all important” as well as “very likely” to “very unlikely”. Each question in the questionnaire which was designed as a Likert scale was given six possible answers to choose from. The rationale underlying the decision to provide six answers instead of, for example, five answers is that in this way participants choosing the neutral option can be avoided. Dörnyei (2003) supports this approach by stating that,

some researchers prefer using an even number of response options because of the concern that certain respondents might use the middle category ('neither agree nor disagree, ' 'not sure, ' or 'neutral') to avoid making a real choice, that is, to take the easy way out.” (p. 37)

In order to make the questions appear as undemanding as possible to the participating teachers, the design of a question matrix was used. This layout takes up relatively little space due to the fact that it is sufficient to provide only one instruction for all of the questions the matrix includes (cf. Cohen et al. 2011: 393).

Figure 2: Example from the online questionnaire: Design of a question matrix

The two other types of closed-ended questions, which are featured in the questionnaire, are Yes/No questions and checklists. The design of the Yes/No questions was based on Dörnyei’s (2003) description of true-false items, according to which “the key sentence (i.e., the one to be 80

judged) in a good true-false item is relatively short and contains a single idea that is not subject to debate (i.e., it is either true or false)” (p. 42). As Yes/No questions are based on the same idea of binary dichotomy, the underlying principle of formulating questions which the respondents are supposed to answer with either Yes or No was adopted in the design of the questionnaire’s Yes/No questions. Checklists, which “consist of a list of descriptive terms, attributes, or even objects, and respondents are instructed to mark the items on the list that apply to the particular question” (Dörnyei 2003: 46), were also added to the questionnaire in cases in which it made sense to have participants choose individual items from a list.

Figure 3: Example from the online questionnaire: Yes/No question

Figure 4: Example from the online questionnaire: Checklist

Apart from the types of closed-ended questions described above, the questionnaire also features multiple open-ended questions. The main advantage of open-ended questions, according to Cohen et al. (2011), is that it enables participants of a survey to “write a free account in their own term, to explain and qualify their responses and avoid the limitations of pre-set categories of response” (p. 382). However, answering open-ended questions also

requires more effort from participants which is why it might add to fatigue and possibly a higher drop-out rate. For this reason, the majority of open-ended questions in this questionnaire were designed to be non-mandatory, which means that the participants were able to continue filling in the questionnaire without providing an answer to those questions. Most of the open-ended questions belong to the category of clarification questions and ask respondents to provide a rationale for an answer they have given in the context of a close- ended question. With regard to the wording of the questions, the following example for clarification questions provided by Dörnyei (2003) was used as a model question: “If you rated the coursebook you are using as ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’, please briefly explain why” (p. 48).

Figure 5: Example from the online questionnaire: Open-ended clarification question

4.2.3.3 Sequencing of items

As will be discussed below, the questionnaire consists of nine question groups which can be considered as belonging to three different areas of content corresponding with the three research questions. Content-wise, the questionnaire opens with asking the teachers for their opinions on sustainability in the EFL classroom, then proceeds with the topic of Young Adult Literature as a tool for teaching towards sustainability in the EFL classroom and, finally, asks the participants to provide feedback on the reading project. In terms of the sequencing of content, the underlying rationale was that it makes sense to begin with a more general content area, namely sustainability in EFL teaching, and then continue with the more specific topic of using YAL in order to incorporate teaching towards sustainability into the EFL classroom. In a similar vein, the question groups which are dedicated to providing feedback on the reading project were put at the end of the questionnaire as they refer to the reading project in particular and can thus be considered as targeting the most specific area of content.

With regard to the question types, the focus was laid on finding a balance between offering diverse question types so as to keep the participants engaged and not switching between different types of questions too often as that might have been demanding and could have led 82

to respondents’ fatigue. The need for this balance was considered in the sequencing of different types of questions. Another consideration which was crucial in the sequencing of items was that the question groups 6, 7 and 8 constitute complex question matrixes requiring a high level of commitment on part of the participants, which is why the decision was made to place those question groups close to the questionnaire’s end. The assumption underlying this decision is that participants might be more willing to engage with demanding question matrixes if they have already put considerable effort into the completion of the questionnaire.

4.2.3.4 Question groups

The questions are divided into nine separate categories or sections, according to their content. In the following, an overview over the groups of questions will be provided and each group will be explained briefly.

Question group 1: The topic “sustainability” in the EFL classroom The first section consists of four questions and deals with the teachers’ opinions on integrating teaching towards sustainability into the EFL classroom. In this section, the participants are asked if they consider teaching towards sustainability as one of EFL teachers’ responsibilities, whether they think that in an average institution of secondary education there are enough opportunities and possibilities for implementing teaching towards sustainability and whether they think the EFL classroom is suitable for thematizing and engaging with various aspects of the topic sustainability. With regard to the last question, respondents are asked to provide a reason for their assessment in the context of an open-ended question. Due to the fact that the answer to this question is of major importance if the research questions of the study are to be answered, this is one of two open-ended questions in the entire questionnaire, which needed to be answered mandatorily.

Question group 2: Using YAL in order to teach towards sustainability in the EFL classroom The second question group is dedicated to the teachers’ judgement concerning the suitability of Young Adult Literature as a tool for teaching towards sustainability in the EFL classroom. The first question deals with reading projects in general and asks participants to evaluate different elements of a reading project in terms of how important they are in order for such a project to be effective and successful. The teachers are then given the opportunity to explain their opinions in the form of a non-mandatory open-ended question. The third question 83

concerns the suitability of using YAL in order to teach towards sustainability and gives the teachers the opportunity to choose between six answers, ranging from “very suitable” to “not suitable at all”. Again, a non-mandatory open-ended follow-up question asks for the rationale underlying their answers.

Question group 3: Feedback regarding the reading project This first section which deals with the reading project and allows for feedback focuses on the project as a whole and the teachers’ overall impression. The teachers are first asked how likely it is that they would use the entire reading project in their teaching. As there might be a variety of different reasons as to why they would not use the whole project, they are asked to provide a reason for their assessment by answering a mandatory open-ended question. Then a wide range of questions concerning the reading project are asked: whether it is rich in variety and trains different competences, whether the individual activities are contextualized and appear to be purposeful to students and whether the way in which the content is delivered can be said to be appealing and interesting to students. Furthermore, the teachers are asked if the project enables students to make a connection between the content and their own lives and whether or not the sequencing of activities seems to be well thought out. The next set of questions asks for the teachers’ evaluation of both the appropriateness of the project in terms of the students’ stage of development and of the implementability of the project when it comes to the periods of time designated to each activity. For both questions, the teachers can add reasons for their answers if they want to. The last question of this section is whether the respondents think that the reading project will have a long-term positive influence on the students’ patterns of consumption. Again, the question is followed by an open-ended question asking for the teachers’ rationale in case they want to provide it.

Question group 4: Feedback on individual lessons In this group of questions, the participants are asked which of the individual lessons (Lesson 1 – Lesson 7) they would use and, optionally, to provide reasons for those lessons which they would not use. Then they are asked which of the lessons (Lesson 1 – Lesson 7) could be improved and, if they have ticked any of the lessons, which suggestions for improvement they can think of. The purpose of this question group is to establish a further differentiation with regard to which parts of the project teachers consider as usable.

Question group 5: Feedback on selected activities The fifth section of the questionnaire is dedicated to giving feedback on selected activities which are related to the book as well as the 100-point-project, which serves as the basis for student assessment. First, the teachers are asked if the activity which introduces the books to the students provides the students with enough information to base their choice of books on. Then the participants are asked if they think the activity “Let’s talk” could be effective in encouraging students to share their opinions and whether the activity “Book club discussion” gives the students sufficient opportunities to share their opinions and feelings. With regard to the 100-point-project, the respondents are asked whether it constitutes a method of assessment which might be motivating to the students, if it accounts for the existence of different learner types and whether the presentation of results, which takes place in the reading project’s last lesson, allows for sufficient attention to be devoted to each student’s effort and enables students to critically reflect on their own performance by comparing it to the output of their peers.

Question groups 6, 7 and 8: Motivation, Language Use and Sustainable Thinking Each of the three questions – one question per question group – asked in question groups 6, 7 and 8 are supposed to be answered with regard to all of the activities of the entire reading project. In question group 6, the participants are asked in how far the individual activities are motivating and capable of arousing students’ interest and making them engage in the activities. In question group 7, the teachers are asked whether the activities facilitate the use of language, either spoken or written. The question which respondents are supposed to answer in question group 8 is to which extent the activities support students in adopting a more sustainable way of thinking.

Question group 9: Further remarks and suggestions for improvement The final section of the questionnaire consists of a non-mandatory open-ended question which provides the opportunity to formulate any additional feedback or suggestions which were not covered by the questionnaire.

4.2.4 Piloting the questionnaire

Piloting a questionnaire refers to testing it in order to evaluate whether it will be capable of providing the necessary results and which changes should be made. It is advisable to pilot

questionnaires in order to collect feedback on various aspects, such as the layout, the way instructions are formulated or the length of the questionnaire (cf. Dörnyei 2003: 64). Oppenheim (1992) emphasizes the significance of a piloting phase by stating that:

Questionnaires do not emerge fully-fledged; they have to be created or adapted, fashioned and developed to maturity after many abortive test flights. In fact, every aspect of a survey has to be tried out beforehand to make sure that it works as intended. (p. 47)

Piloting the questionnaire involves a variety of stages, such as first having friends test the questionnaire, revising it and then asking individuals who belong to the group which the study will focus on – in the case of this study EFL teachers – to try out the questionnaire and provide valuable feedback. Due to time restrictions the second part of the piloting phase was not conducted; however, a short piloting phase was conducted in which a significant number of friends, a significant percentage of whom are trainee teachers, tested the questionnaire, and which was followed by an extensive phase of revision. The most important change concerned the length of the questionnaire, as the first version included even more questions and was shortened due to the feedback which was received in the context of the piloting phase. Moreover, the wording of a variety of questions was revised in order to make them clearer and more concise as, according to the feedback provided by the participants of the piloting phase, the exact scope and meaning of some of the questions of the questionnaire’s first version were open to interpretation.

4.2.5 Participants

The participants of this study were recruited according to the concept of convenience or opportunity samples, which means that,

an important criterion of sample selection is the convenience for the researcher: Members of the target population will be selected for the purpose of the study if they meet certain practical criteria, such as geographical proximity, availability at a certain time, or easy accessibility” (Dörnyei 2003: 72).

English teachers from a variety of schools in Graz, Klagenfurt and Villach were contacted via e-mail and asked if they wanted to participate in the study. The reason as to why at first teachers from Graz were contacted is that I am located in Graz and thus recruiting participants who work in this city was advantageous in so far as it would have allowed for personal meetings if necessary. When it became clear that the response rate from teachers situated in 86

Graz would not be sufficient, teachers from Villach and Klagenfurt were contacted because I have strong personal connections to those cities and it would thus also have been possible to arrange meetings with teachers working in either of those cities. There were two main criteria with regard to the schools that were targeted: Firstly, only schools of the school types NMS and AHS were chosen, in which English was taught to students belonging to the age group the reading project was designed for. Secondly, as the teachers’ mail addresses provided on the schools’ websites were used, only schools that clearly indicated on their website which subjects were taught by each individual teacher were included. Otherwise, the only option would have been to send e-mails to all teachers of those schools, irrespective of which subjects they teach, and hope that English teachers would reply. This approach was not taken because it did not only seem like a suboptimal management of time resources but also because causing any inconveniences to teachers of other subjects was to be avoided.

For the purpose of the study, it was necessary to collect data from at least ten participants. The relatively small size of the sample group was a result of time constraints as well as a high drop-out rate which might have been attributable to the significant amount of time necessary for participants in order to deal with the reading project in sufficient depth enabling them to evaluate its individual activities while filling out the questionnaire. Due to the fact that the participants remained anonymous and no data on their personal background was collected, it cannot be reconstructed who ultimately filled in the questionnaires.

One phenomenon, which needs to be mentioned with regard to the recruitment of the participants, as it could have a strong effect on the data collected in this study, is what Dörnyei (2003) calls the “problem of participant self-selection”. He states that this issue can arise “when for various reasons the actual composition of the sample is not only the function of some systematic selection process but also of factors related to the respondents' own willingness to participate” (p. 75). In the case of this study, the teachers were provided with the choice of whether or not they wanted to participate by filling out the questionnaire, which means that the phenomenon of self-selection is definitely relevant. Teachers who are interested in the topic of sustainability in general or have a positive attitude towards the use of Young Adult Literature in the EFL classroom might have been more likely to agree to participate. It can be assumed that this factor to some extent had an influence on the findings and thus compromises the study’s representativity and generalizability.

4.2.6 Administering the Questionnaire

The teachers were first approached via e-mail and asked if they would be willing to participate in the study by filling out an online questionnaire. This first e-mail included detailed information on the content and purpose of the study, the assertion that the information provided by the respondents would be treated anonymously as well as the promise that respondents would not only be given the reading project which they could then use for teaching purposes, but could also choose to be provided with a pdf version of the finished diploma thesis. As Gillham (2000) states, "If respondents are clear about what you are trying to find out and why, they are much more likely to respond appropriately and helpfully, or, indeed, at all” (p. 38). Dörnyei (2003) agrees by claiming that “an important element in 'selling' the survey to the participants is communicating to them the purpose of the survey and conveying to them the potential significance of the results” (p. 86). This is why an effort was made to emphasize that any feedback on the reading project given in the context of the survey would allow for its optimization and thus contribute to increasing its efficiency with regard to teaching towards sustainability. Moreover, in this first e-mail, the teachers were thanked in advance for considering participation and told to reply to the e-mail in case they were willing to partake in the study, as they would then be sent the link to the online survey.

In order to increase respondents’ motivation as well as to decrease the drop-out rate, those teachers who agreed to fill out the questionnaire and were located in Graz were provided with a print-out version of the reading project, which was deposited at their school’s secretary’s office. Also, two follow-up e-mails were sent to each teacher who had replied to the initial e- mail and had subsequently been provided with the link to the online questionnaire. In those follow-up e-mails the teachers were reminded of the survey and, again, the importance of their contribution was emphasized. In this way, it was possible to motivate ten teachers to undertake the time-consuming task of filling in the questionnaire.

4.2.7 Analysing the data

The research tool LimeSurvey, which was used in order to design and administer the questionnaires, allows for the direct transfer of collected data to Excel once the questionnaire is deactivated. In this way, the data could be analysed and interpreted, and graphs could be designed in order to illustrate the findings of the closed-ended questions. With regard to question groups 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, the graphs which were provided by the software LimeSurvey 88

are used in this thesis. As the results of question groups 6, 7 and 8 were combined for analysis (the rationale underlying this decision will be explained in the following section of this thesis, which will deal with the study’s findings), graphs which illustrate the combined results of those three question groups were created.

As far as the results of the multiple open-ended questions are concerned, the following approach described by Wrigley (2018) was taken:

The single open-ended question in this survey was coded by reading through the answers carefully, marking words and phrases, and searching for patterns. (…) For the analysis, the teachers’ statements were grouped together into themes. These themes were presented and some interesting quotations were cited. (p. 55)

4.2.8 Ethics

As in the course of participating in the study the teachers were asked to share information on their personal as well as professional views and beliefs, it was necessary to carefully consider the ethical dimensions of the study. The importance of reflecting on the ethics underlying the design and administration of the questionnaire becomes obvious when considering that, according to Dörnyei and Taguchi (2010), “no harm should come to the respondents as a result of their participation in the research. This is the primary ethical principle governing data collection and it overrides all other considerations” (p. 79). In order to ensure that the participants would not suffer negative effects from partaking in the study, the decision was made to collect the data anonymously and, accordingly, not use names of teachers or schools in their analysis. Furthermore, the teachers were informed of the scope and purpose of the study not only in the e-mails via which they were first approached but also through the questionnaire’s welcome text. In this way they were provided with the information necessary for them in order to decide whether or not they wanted to voluntarily participate in the study and, moreover, they were also informed on what the collected data would subsequently be used for. In the formulation of both the mails used in order to contact the teachers and the questionnaire’s welcome text as well as final remarks it was made a priority to emphasize the fact that the answers would be treated anonymously. Also, the participants were provided with my contact information so as to ensure that they were able to approach me if any further questions or concerns should occur. The use of consent forms was abstained from as the respondents could choose freely whether or not they wanted to fill in the online questionnaire and thus their participation implied consent. Moreover, in the case of this study, requiring 89

participants to sign consent forms would have reduced the level of anonymity as it would have required respondents to share information on their identity.

5 Questionnaire Findings

In this section of the thesis, the findings of the study will be presented in detail. The results will be divided into the respective question groups (1 – 9), which were described in the previous section, and will thus be presented in the same order in which they were collected in the questionnaire. The findings of question groups 6, 7 and 8 will be presented in combination; the reason for this condensed presentation is that each of those three question groups consisted of one statement which participants were required to react to with regard to each of the activities of the reading project.

5.1 Question group 1: The topic “sustainability” in the EFL classroom

The first question group was concerned with finding an answer to RQ1, “Is the EFL classroom suitable for teaching towards sustainability?”

The first statement teachers were asked to rate on a Likert Scale was: “Als EnglischlehrerIn gehört es zu meinen Aufgaben, SchülerInnen das Bewusstsein und das Wissen zu vermitteln, das sie für eine nachhaltige Lebensweise benötigen.“ [As an English teacher, it is part of my responsibilities/duties to provide students with the awareness and knowledge they need in order to live sustainably.] The options “I strongly disagree”, “I disagree” and “I tend to disagree” were chosen by none of the ten teachers who answered the question. One participant (10%) chose the option of “I tend to agree”, while four respondents (40%) agreed and the remaining 5 teachers (50%) strongly agreed with the statement. Overall, it can be said that there was a positive response to the first statement as 100% of the participants agreed with it, even though the extent to which they agreed varied.

Figure 6: Results of the question: "Als EnglischlehrerIn gehört es zu meinen Aufgaben, SchülerInnen das Bewusstsein und das Wissen zu vermitteln, das sie für eine nachhaltige Lebensweise benötigen." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

The second statement referred to the practicability of implementing teaching towards sustainability into the EFL classroom: “Die zeitlichen, strukturellen und curricularen Vorgaben in einer durchschnittlichen höheren Schule in Österreich lassen genug Zeit und Raum für die Thematisierung und Bearbeitung von Nachhaltigkeit im Englischunterricht.“ [Time-wise, structurally and with regard to the curriculum, the circumstances in an average Austrian secondary school allow for the thematization of and engagement with sustainability in the EFL classroom to a sufficient extent.] There was a wide range of agreement and disagreement on this statement among the participants. While three respondents (30%) tended to disagree, four teachers (40%) tended to agree, two teachers (20%) agreed and one respondent (10%) even strongly agreed. This means that, overall, seven out of ten participants (70%) seem to think that, structurally, there are sufficient opportunities for EFL teachers to implement teaching towards sustainability into their teaching.

Figure 7: Results of the question: "Die zeitlichen, strukturellen und curricularen Vorgaben in einer durchschnittlichen höheren Schule in Österreich lassen genug Zeit und Raum für die Thematisierung und Bearbeitung ..." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

The third statement of this question group very directly refers to RQ1, “Is the EFL classroom suitable for teaching towards sustainability?” The statement participants were asked to evaluate is “Für wie geeignet halten Sie den Englischunterricht, um verschiedene Aspekte der Nachhaltigkeit zu thematisieren und zu vermitteln?“ [To what extent do you consider the EFL classroom as an environment suitable for thematizing and teaching different aspects of sustainability?] The teachers were provided with six options ranging from “very suitable” to “not at all suitable”. The three answers which referred to the EFL classroom as unsuitable were not chosen by any participants. While two participants (20%) chose the answer “rather suitable”, the majority of respondents (60%) consider the EFL classroom as suitable and the remaining two teachers (20%) even as a “very suitable” environment. This goes to show that the statement referring to the EFL classroom as a suitable environment for teaching towards sustainability was supported by 100% of the survey’s participants.

Figure 8: Results of the question: "Für wie geeignet halten Sie den Englischunterricht, um verschiedene Aspekte der Nachhaltigkeit zu thematisieren und zu vermitteln?" Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

The last question of this question group was an open-ended question requiring participants to provide a rationale for their evaluation of the third statement. As answering this open-ended question was mandatory, ten responses were collected; however, one of the participants did not understand which statement this clarification question referred to and did thus not provide a usable answer.

Of the remaining nine respondents, six mentioned the relationship between topic areas of sustainability and topic areas which can be dealt with in the English classroom. For example, one respondent claimed that topic areas such as globalisation, fashion or health and nutrition are suitable for facilitating an engagement with sustainability: “Bei einigen Themengebieten wie z.B. Globalisierung oder Umwelteinflüsse/Probleme oder Mode oder Gesundheit/ Essen kann man gut auf Nachhaltigkeit eingehen.” Another participant agrees by stating that: “Themen wie food, tourism, fashion, consumerism,… eignen sich sehr gut.” [Topics such as food, tourism, fashion, consumerism, … are well-suited.] The fact that issues of sustainability encompass a wide range of different topics which can be integrated into the EFL classroom is mentioned by another teacher, who wrote that “Themenkomplexe wie z.B. environment, lassen einen breiten Spielraum zu” [Topic areas such as the environment give teachers an ample scope.] Similarly, one respondent named “Vielfalt der Themen und Vernetzung mit anderen Gebieten“ [diversity of topics and connectedness with other subjects] as one of the reasons as to why the topic of sustainability can be implemented into EFL teaching. Apart from those respondents, who pointed out that the topic area of sustainability comprises a 94

variety of sub-topics which can be focalized in the EFL classroom, two teachers referred to the fact that EFL teaching by its nature can include a wide variety of different topics. While one teacher stated that, “Der Englischunterricht bietet sehr viel Freiheit in Bezug auf die Themenwahl“ [EFL teaching offers much liberty with regard to the choice of topics], the other teacher goes so far as to claim the following: “Der Englischunterricht ist offen für jegliche Themengebiete, alle Thembereiche können erarbeitet werden, dementsprechend kann Nachhaltigkeit thematisiert und vermittelt werden.“ [The EFL classroom is amenable to all topic areas, all topic areas can be worked on; accordingly, sustainability can be thematized and mediated.]

Apart from referring to the connection between teaching towards sustainability and EFL teaching in terms of the topics involved, which seems to be the main argument made by the participants in response to this questionnaire item, two respondents also mentioned the fact that sustainability, to some extent, is thematized in the school books used in the EFL classroom. One participant writes, “wird auch in Schulbüchern teilweise thematisiert” [is also thematized in school books, to some extent], while another participant claims: “Das Thema kommt in Ansätzen in den Büchern vor – kann ausgebaut werden.” [The topic is partially featured in the books – could be expanded.]

Two respondents made pleas for integrating sustainability which were rather generalized with regard to their formulation: One teacher wrote that, “Ein moderner Englischunterricht sollte abgesehen von der Vermittlung der Fremdsprache auch eine allgemeine und nachhaltige Wissenvermittlung bieten.“ [Modern English teaching should offer not only teaching the foreign language but also a transfer of general and sustainable knowledge.] Another participant argued in similar terms, claiming that, “Den Schüler/innen sollte die Kompetenz (Vokabular,..) vermittelt werden, um sich über relevante Themen unserer Zeit in der Fremdsprache ausdrücken zu können.“ [Students should be provided with the competences (vocab, …) they need in order to speak in the foreign language about topics which are currently relevant.]

Other opinions which were expressed include the belief that the topic of sustainability is interesting for students as well as a good basis for communicative tasks, language teaching is communicative and leaves room for an engagement with topics and that language problems which might occur in the context of thematizing sustainability could provide a valuable opportunity for teaching specific vocabulary. One of the participants provided an answer which indicates that his or her opinion on the suitability of the EFL classroom for dealing 95

with sustainability might deviate from the opinions of the other respondents. This participant wrote that, “Fächer wie beispielsweise Biologie und Umweltkunde oder Geografie und Wirtschaftskunde würden sich noch besser zur Thematisierung dieses Themas eignen.“ [Subjects such as biology or geography are even more suitable for dealing with this topic.] Apparently, this respondent seems to think that English is not as suitable for teaching towards sustainability as other subjects.

5.2 Question group 2: Using YAL in order to teach towards sustainability in the EFL classroom

The first question of this question group deals with various elements a reading project can consist of and asks teachers to evaluate the importance of those elements by rating them on a scale from “very important” to “not at all important”. The following table illustrates the answers which were given by the participants:

Not at all Not important Rather not Rather Important Very important important important important 1. An exciting, motivating 1 5 (50%) 4 (40%) introduction of the books (10%)

2. An introduction of the 1 5 4 (40%) books which involves the students in an interactive (10%) (50%) and discovering manner

3. Providing the students 3 (30%) 3 (30 4 with a choice of books to read %) (40%)

4. Activation of previous 2 5 3 knowledge and establishing of a common (20%) (50%) (30%) knowledge base prior to the phase of reading 5. Teaching of unknown 1 2 4 2 1 vocabulary before the students start reading (10%) (20%) (40%) (20%) (10%)

6. Teaching of vocabulary 1 6 3 while the students are in the process of reading (10%) (60%) (30%)

7. Teaching of vocabulary 2 5 3 after the students have read the books (20%) (50%) (30%)

8. Tasks which the 1 1 5 3 students have to do while in the process of reading (10%) (10%) (50%) (30%)

9. Sufficient opportunities 1 2 3 4 for students to share their thoughts and opinions on (10%) (20%) (30%) (40%) what they have read with peers 10. The establishment of a 3 7 connection between what the students read and (30%) (70%) related topic areas (such as sustainability)

11. An engagement with or 2 3 4 1 thematization of the language used in the book (20%) (30%) (40%) (10%) (for example grammatical or stylistic characteristics)

12. A tool of assessment in 1 2 4 2 1 order to assess the students’ performance (10%) (20%) (40%) (20%) (10%) (such as a test, project work, …)

The participants put value to the introduction of books as can be seen from the fact that 90% of them consider it as either “important” or “very important” to include an introduction which is exciting and motivating and the same percentage of respondents is of the opinion that engaging the students in an interactive and discovering way is an important or very important part of introducing a reading project’s books.

All of the participants agree that it is of importance to offer students more than one book to choose from when conducting a reading project. However, only 40% of the respondents refer to this element of a reading project as “very important”, whereas 30% claim it is “important” and another 30% think it is “rather important”.

The activation of pre-existing knowledge as well as the establishment of a shared knowledge base is another feature which is considered to be of significance by all of the participants: 3 out of ten teachers (30%) state that it is very important, 5 teachers (50%) consider it as important and the remaining 2 (20%) chose the option of “rather important”.

The next three items refer to the teaching of vocabulary in the context of a reading project and whether it should be done prior to the students starting to read, while they are reading or after they have finished the books. Even though 70%, 90% and 80% of teachers respectively ascribed some kind of importance to the different approaches to teaching vocabulary, in comparison, they seem to consider teaching of vocabulary in the context of a reading project as less significant than the other features they evaluated. For all three categories combined, only one participant (10%) chose the option of “very important”, referring to teaching vocabulary prior to the reading phase. The element of teaching vocabulary while the students are engaged in the process of reading received the most agreement, with 90% of respondents considering it as either “rather important” or “important”.

Five out of ten teachers (50%) agree that providing students with tasks to complete during the reading process is important and 30% claim it is very important. However, the options “not important” and “rather not important” were chosen by one teacher (10%) each.

The last item of this question, which asked teachers in how far a reading project needs to include opportunities for students to share their thoughts and opinions with peers, got a positive response, with 40% of participants considering it to be a very important feature of reading projects and only one respondent (10%) not ascribing importance to the element and thus choosing the option “rather not important”.

The next element received the most positive response of this question matrix. It asked participants to evaluate the importance of establishing a connection between the books’ content and a specific topic area, for example, the topic area of sustainability, which was used in the case of the reading project put forward in this thesis. Seven of the teachers (70%) made the claim that establishing this connection is very important and the remaining 30% still think it is important.

Having the students engage with the linguistic characteristics of the language used in the books, on the other hand, is regarded as “not important” or “rather unimportant” by half of the participants, while 40% think it is rather important and only one respondent (10%) considers it as very important.

When it comes to the last question of this matrix, which is whether a reading project needs to include a tool for assessment, the opinions seem to be divided: One of the participants (10%) thinks it is not important and the same number of participants (also 10%) considers it as very

important. Both of the options “rather not important” and “important” were chosen by 2 respondents (20%) each. The majority of participants (40%) thinks it is rather important.

The second question of this question group is an open-ended question asking for the teachers’ rationale concerning their evaluations in the first question. Even though providing an answer to the second question was not mandatory, nine participants chose to fill out the open-ended question. One participant simply wrote “durch Erfahrung” [from experience], whereas the other teachers provided more in-depth reasons for their answers to the first question of this question group.

One question which is discussed by more than one respondent is in how far teachers should intervene when it comes to the reading process. One respondent claims that it is “wichtig den Prozess des Lesens zu begleiten und aufzuteilen“ [it is important to monitor and segment the reading process] and another respondent agrees by stating that “es ist notwendig, den Process zu unterstützen” [it is necessary to support the process]. On the other hand, one of the other teachers adds the following for consideration:

Werden zu viele Aufgabenstellungen mit dem Lesen verknüpft, verlieren SchülerInnen schnell den Spaß am Lesen. […] Je motivierter und am Lesen interessierter die SchülerInnen, desto schneller verlieren sie durch zu viel Steuerung von außen die Lust am Buch. [If too many tasks are given while reading, students soon stop enjoying the reading. […] The more motivated and interested in reading students are, the sooner they will loose their desire for reading the book if there is too much external interference.]

This view is supported by yet another teacher, who wrote that, “Ansonsten finde ich, soll das Lesen möglichst "Privatsache" der Schüler_innen sein, in die Lehrer_innen nicht zu stark eingreifen sollten.“ [Apart from that, I think that reading should be students’ “private affair” and that teachers should not interfere too much.] This difference in opinions illustrates the results which were acquired in the context of the first question.

With regard to teaching of vocabulary, which has been shown to be of less importance to the teachers in the first question of this question group, two comments were made in the open- ended question matrix. One teacher wrote that unknown words or phrases can be explained if students ask for their meaning, which will not be necessary too often because the meaning of the majority of words can be understood if the words are in context. This participant then adds that, ultimately, the decision of whether or not to teach certain phrases or stylistic characteristics rests on the individual teacher and that a teacher should just do it if he or she wants to. The other respondent who elaborated on the subject of teaching vocabulary voiced 99

the following opinion: “Ich finde den Gedankenaustausch während und nach der Lektüre eines Buches wichtiger als das Lernen von unbekannten Vokabeln und das Abprüfen derselben.“ [I consider the exchange of ideas while and after reading a book as more important than learning and being tested on unknown vocabulary.] Considering the findings of this question group’s first question matrix, this statement seems to sum up the teachers’ attitude towards teaching vocabulary during a reading project.

Another aspect which was mentioned multiple times was providing students with different options of books to read: Three teachers mentioned the importance of providing students with a choice of books, one of them claiming that: “Die Schüler/innen sollten nicht a priori zum Lesen eines bestimmten Buchs gezwungen werden.” [The students should not be forced to read a particular book a priori.] With regard to focusing on the language or stylistic features used in the books, one participant stated that whether an engagement with those elements should take place depends on whether or not it is necessary or useful for understanding the book. Another respondent adds the consideration that teachers should decide whether the focus should be laid on an engagement with the topics dealt with in the books or rather on grammatical or stylistic characteristics of the book. As far as the inclusion of an assessment tool is concerned, two different arguments were brought forward: One participant claimed that the tasks students do during the reading phase should be sufficient in order to determine how thoroughly the students have engaged with the books. Another participant, however, is of the following opinion: “Gegen eine Form der Überprüfung am Ende des Projekts spricht aber gar nichts; sie ist sogar aus Fairness denen gegenüber wichtig, die sich beim Lesen und Erarbeiten viel angetan haben.“ [There is no reason not to include some kind of examination at the end of the project; on the contrary, it is important so as to guarantee fairness for those who have put a lot of effort into reading and working on the book.]

The next question of this question group asks the teachers to assess the suitability of YAL as a tool for teaching towards sustainability. The question is formulated in the following way: “Wie geeignet ist der Einsatz von Jugendliteratur, um Aspekte des Themenfeldes Nachhaltigkeit im Englischunterricht zu vermitteln?“ [How suitable is the use of Young Adult Literature in order to teach aspects of the topic area sustainability in the EFL classroom?] The participants were asked to answer by choosing one of six options, ranging from “not suitable at all” to “very suitable.” As can be seen in the following chart, the majority of participants think that YAL is a tool which can be used for teaching and learning sustainability. Four respondents (40%) consider it as “very suitable”, another 40% think it is “suitable”, one

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respondent (10%) chose the option of “rather suitable” and only one teacher (10%) challenges the idea of using YAL for the purpose of teaching towards sustainability by going for the answer “rather not suitable”.

Figure 9: Results of the question: "Wie geeignet ist der Einsatz von Jugendliteratur, um Aspekte des Themenfeldes Nachhaltigkeit im Englischunterricht zu vermitteln?" Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

The final question of this question group is an open-ended question asking the teachers to formulate a reason for their answer to the third question. Three of the teachers formulated conditions which need to be fulfilled in order for YAL to be an effective tool: Two of them wrote that it depends on the respective book which is chosen and one participant stated that YAL is useful if the teacher is able to get across the meaning of the topic in an authentic way. A variety of advantages of using Young Adult Literature when dealing with sustainability were mentioned. One participant claimed that using YAL could be a way of enthusing the students with a topic such as sustainability. Another respondent wrote that YAL might help students to understand the topic and yet another teacher voiced the opinion that books belonging to the category of YAL arouse students’ interest. Two teachers mentioned the fact that YAL enables students to establish connections between the topic and their own personal lives: One teacher wrote, “schaffen Verbindungen zum Leben der SuS” [(the books) create connections to the students’ lives] and another teacher used the phrase “persönlicher Bezug” [personal connection] in order to refer to the students being enabled to relate to the topic on a personal level. Another advantage of YAL which was mentioned is the diversity of topics which are covered by Young Adult Literature: “Im Grunde ist das Feld "Jugendliteratur" so ergiebig, dass sich bestimmt einiges zu diesem (wie auch fast jedem anderen) Thema finden 101

lässt.” [Ultimately, as YAL is such a broad field, it is surely possible to find material dealing with this topic (and with almost any other topic).] The teacher argues that YAL deals with such a wide range of topics that books are suitable for teaching towards sustainability are sure to be among them. Only one teacher who provided an answer to this open-ended question voiced an opinion which indicated that she or he does not consider YAL to be a suitable tool for teaching sustainability, namely: “Ich halte die Thematik für zu vielfältig und umfassend um sie mit der Lektüre nur eines Jugendbuches ausreichend zu bearbeiten (sprachlich und inhaltlich).” [I think the topic (of sustainability) is too diverse and broad as to be processable by the use of only one book of Young Adult Literature (in terms of language and content).]

5.3 Question group 3: Feedback regarding the reading project

The first question of this question group asked the participants to rate the likelihood of them using the entire reading project with their students. As can be seen in the chart below, the answers which were given varied to a significant degree. Two teachers (20%) responded that it was unlikely that they would use the entire reading project in their teaching and three teachers (30%) chose the option of “rather unlikely”, which means that half of the survey population consider it as unlikely that they would use the reading project as a whole. The other five teachers, on the other hand, chose to answer that it was likely they would use the project in their classrooms, with two teachers (20%) deeming it “rather likely”, another two teachers (20%) claiming it was “likely” and one teacher (10%) even saying it was “very likely”. All in all, the opinions on this question are clearly divided.

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Figure 10: Results of the question: "Wie wahrscheinlich ist es, dass Sie das Reading Project als Ganzes für die Arbeit mit Ihren SchülerInnen verwenden würden?" Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

In order to better understand the teachers’ rationale underlying their decisions as to whether or not they would use the reading project, they were provided with the opportunity to give reasons in the form of an open-ended question. It became obvious that the main reason as to why teachers proclaimed it as unlikely that they would use the entire reading project is that they feel it would take up too much time. Out of ten teachers who provided an answer to the open-ended question, seven (70%) named time constraints as the reason for not adopting the whole reading project. As one participant put it: “Dies hängt vom Arbeitstempo der Gruppe ab, da der Lehrplan mehrere Themenbereiche innerhalb eines Semesters vorgesehen hat und man somit zeitlich gebunden ist.“ [It depends on the class‘ work pace as the curriculum includes multiple topic areas per semester and one is thus constrained time-wise.] Another teacher uses a similar argument, by stating: „Leider bleibt aufgrund von Zeitdruck im regulären Englischunterricht nicht ausreichend Zeit für ein solches Reading Project.“ [Unfortunately, due to time constraints in regular English classes there is not enough time for such a reading project.] Two of the teachers added the consideration that they think it would take them more than seven lessons to finish the reading project. One of them wrote that there would thus not be enough time to do the reading project, while the other teacher argued that, considering that the project would use up more than seven lessons, he or she would not want to spend that many lessons dealing with the same topic.

In relation to the factor of time, two participants mentioned the possibility of implementing the reading project in the context of an elective subject. Another aspect which was mentioned 103

by two participants is that the project needs to fit the respective class. One respondent wrote that whether she or he would use the project depends on whether it matches the interests of the students of the respective class and the other participant stated that the project would need to be adapted for the respective group and framework conditions. The remaining teacher, who was apparently in favour of using the entire reading project in class, substantiated his or her opinion by arguing that: “Ich bevorzuge es ein Reading Project eher im großen Rahmen und vollständig zu machen, damit die Schüler auch den Sinn und die Wichtigkeit des Themas vollständig erfassen.“ [I prefer doing reading projects on a grand scale and completely so as to have the students fully conceive the meaning and importance of the topic.]

The next set of questions asked for feedback regarding various aspects of the reading project. First, the participants were asked if they think that the reading project is rich in variety and trains different competences to a sufficient extent. There were six options the participants could choose from in order to answer, ranging from “I do not agree at all” to “I fully agree”. All of the ten respondents agreed with the statement: Six teachers (60%) fully agreed, three teachers (30%) agreed and one teacher (10%) chose the option “I tend to agree”.

Figure 11: Results of the question: "Das Reading Project ist abwechslungsreich und fokussiert in ausreichendem Maße unterschiedliche Kompetenzen." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

The next statement the teachers were asked to react to was the following: “Die Activities des Reading Projects sind in einen klaren kommunikativen Kontext eingebettet; die Bedeutung / der Zweck der Activities ist für die SchülerInnen nachvollziehbar.“ [The reading project’s activities have a clear communicate context; the meaning and purpose of the activities is

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comprehensible to students.] Again, all of the teachers agreed with the statement: 60% of them chose the answer “I fully agree”, while 20% agreed and another 20% tended to agree.

When asked whether the content of the reading project was presented in a way which makes it appealing and interesting to students, two of the teachers (20%) opted for “I tend to agree”, four (40%) chose the option “I agree” and the remaining four (40%) went for “I fully agree”. Again, all of the participants to some extent agreed with the statement.

Figure 13: Results of the question: "Die Inhalte sind so aufbereitet, dass sie für SchülerInnen ansprechend und interessant sind." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

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The next statement was formulated in the following way: “Die Inhalte sind so aufbereitet, dass sie SchülerInnen die Möglichkeit bieten, ihre eigene Lebensrealität mit den behandelten Inhalten in Verbindung zu bringen.“ [The contents are created in a way which provides students with the opportunity to mentally connect their own lives and realities to the contents they deal with.] This statement received a very positive response, with seven teachers (70%) fully agreeing with it. Of the remaining three teachers, two (20%) agree with the statement and one teacher (10%) tends to agree with it.

Figure 14: Results of the question: "Die Inhalte sind so aufbereitet, dass sie SchülerInnen die Möglichkeit bieten, ihre eigene Lebensrealität mit den behandelten Inhalten in Verbindung zu bringen." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

The last question of this question matrix referred to the sequence of lessons as a whole and asked teachers if it appeared to be well thought out and self-consistent: “Die Abfolge der Activities ist durchdacht; die Unterrichtssequenz als Ganzes wirkt stimmig.” Six teachers (60%) agreed with this statement and four teachers (40%) fully agreed, which means that the response to this statement can also be considered as positive.

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Figure 15: Results of the question: "Die Abfolge der Activities ist durchdacht; die Unterrichtssequenz als Ganzes wirkt stimmig." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

The next set of questions of this question group are concerned with the level of difficulty and time frame of the reading project. In the form of two Yes/No items, the participants were first asked whether they would consider the level of difficulty of the reading project as appropriate in relation to the students’ state of development. The second question the teachers were required to answer was whether or not a sufficient amount of time was ascribed to the completion of the individual activities. While all of the ten participants answered the first question with “Yes”, only seven teachers (70%) answered the second question with Yes and three (30%) answered with “No”, as can be seen in the figure below.

Figure 16: Results of the question: "Die für die einzelnen Activities vorgesehene Zeit ist ausreichend." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019. 107

For both questions, open-ended clarification questions followed, which asked respondents to provide a reason for their assessment if they had answered any of the two questions with “No”. As there were no negative responses to the first question, none of the participants answered the subsequent clarification question. With regard to the clarification question referring to the second question, however, two responses were provided. According to one of the responses, the teachers’ experience makes him or her think that the completion of each of the individual activities would take significantly longer than estimated in the description of the reading project. The teacher who provided the second response stated the following:

Der Zeitplan ist in meinen Augen teilweise etwas zu eng getaktet. Er lässt wenig Spielraum für Erklärungen und "Infrastruktur" (Austeilen, Gruppenzuteilung, Wechsel zwischen Arbeitsformen), auch finde ich die einzelnen Ideen großteils so gut (z.B. den Teil "Describing a concept"/"Drawing a concept map" aus Lesson 2), dass ich sie ungern nach kurzer Zeit abbrechen möchte. Insgesamt könnte man mit dem Reading Project in der jetzigen Form bestimmt 10 Einheiten füllen. :-)

[In my opinion, the time plan sometimes is too narrow. There is little room for explanations and „infrastructure“ (handing out worksheets, formation of groups, change of work mode), also I like the majority of ideas so much (e.g. the part “Describing a concept”/”Drawing a concept map” from lesson 2) that I would not want to cut them short. All in all, one could use the reading project in its current form to conduct 10 lessons. :-)]

The last closed-ended question the participants were confronted with in this question group was the following: “Für wie wahrscheinlich halten Sie es, dass das Reading Project langfristig einen positiven Einfluss auf das Konsumverhalten und Kaufentscheidungen der SchülerInnen haben wird?“ [How likely do you think it is that the reading project will have a long-lasting positive influence on the students’ patterns and choices of consumption?] As can be seen in the graph below, one teacher (10%) regards it as very unlikely that the students’ consumption behaviour will be altered due to the reading project and another teacher (10%) claims it is rather unlikely. However, the categories “rather likely” and “likely” were chosen by four teachers (40%) each and thus the majority of participants (80%) agrees that the reading project could have a positive influence on the students’ consumption patterns.

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Figure 17: Results of the question: "Für wie wahrscheinlich halten Sie es, dass das Reading Project langfristig einen positiven Einfluss auf das Konsumverhalten und Kaufentscheidungen der SchülerInnen haben wird?" Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

In the following clarification question, the respondents were asked for the reasons underlying their judgement in the previous question, and nine responses were collected. Five out of the nine respondents put emphasis on the fact that the effect of the reading project will be different for individual students and that some of them might benefit from it and behavioural change might occur, whereas others might not be influenced at all. One participant claims that, “SchülerInnen, die generell interessiert sind, werden positiv beeinflusst, andere weniger“ [Students who are interested in general will be influenced positively, the other students will be influenced less] and another participant states that boys will be less affected by the topic because they do not care about clothes as much as girls. One teacher pointed out that, in the long run, the students will at least remember the ideas and concepts:

Als Lehrer_Innen können wir Schüler_Innen Denkanstöße für neue Ideen, Konzepte und Lebenswege mitgeben. Bei manchen werden diese keine/kaum Auswirkungen haben, bei manchen kommt vielleicht wirklich etwas ins Rollen. (…) Bei einer derart fundierten Bearbeitung des Themas stehen die Chancen aber sicher gut, dass zumindest Ideen und Konzepte hängen bleiben. Was die Schüler_Innen dann daraus machen, ist wie immer schwer abzuschätzen.

[As teachers, we can provide students with food for thought concerning new ideas, concepts and ways of living. This will have no impact on some students, while it might set the ball rolling for others. When a topic is dealt with this thoroughly, chances are surely high that at least ideas and concepts are remembered. As always it is hard to reckon what the students then do with that.]

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Two of the teachers clearly argued in favour of the reading project affecting the students. One of them claimed that, “nach so intensiver Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema sollte es auch zu einem Nachdenken bzw. Verhaltensveränderung bei den Schülern kommen.“ [After having engaged with the topic this intensely, thinking about it and a change in behavior should occur among the students.] The second teacher gave the following reason: “weil die Problematik bewusst gemacht wird” [because awareness concerning the issue is raised], indicating that this increase in awareness will lead to alterations in behaviour.

Of the remaining three teachers, one argued that the success of the reading project would depend on the extent to which the students are involved and able to draw the connection to their own lives (“Es kommt darauf an, inwieweit die SchülerInnen in das Projekt miteingebunden sind und ihre Lebensrealität darin selbst erkennen können.”) The other two teachers sound less optimistic, with one of them referring to the fact that topics such as animal protection, environmentalism and food are covered thoroughly every year and still do not have an effect on the students’ consumption habits regarding food, which can be seen from the fact that they still eat fast food and use plastic bottles. The other teacher who does not seem to consider it as likely that the reading project will influence the students to a great extent wrote that, “Die Betroffenheit ist sicher eine Zeit lang gegeben, langfristige Beeinflussung darf bezweifelt werden, wenn das Thema nicht wieder angesprochen wird, egal wann und wo (in einem anderen Gegenstand, im Elternhaus).“ [Consternation will surely occur for some time; that a long-term influence will occur is doubtable if the topic is not brought up again, irrespective of when and where (in the context of another subject, at home).]

5.4 Question group 4: Feedback on individual lessons

In this question group, the participants were first asked whether or not they would use the individual lessons with their 11th grade students. With regard to the lessons 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7 nine out of ten teachers answered that they would use the lesson in their teaching. That means that 90% of the participants would use the lessons mentioned above. In terms of the lessons 3 and 6, eight respondents (80%) indicated that they would use the lessons while two teachers (20%) responded that they would not use it. In the graphs below, the distribution of answers for lessons 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7 (see graph 1) and lessons 3 and 6 (see graph 2) are illustrated:

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Figure 18: Results of the question: "Würden Sie die Unterrichtsstunde für den Unterricht mit einer elften Schulstufe verwenden?" (Results concerning lessons 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7.) Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

Figure 19: Results of the question: "Würden Sie die Unterrichtsstunde für den Unterricht mit einer elften Schulstufe verwenden?" (Results concerning lessons 3 and 6.) Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

The following open-ended clarification question, which demanded the participants to explain the reasons for the answers given in the previous question matrix, was answered by three respondents. The responses all refer to the issue of time constraints and the activities taking up more time than is accounted for. The first respondent wrote that with regard to the first lesson, he or she would only refrain from using the activity with the magnetic board. With regard to the other lessons, this participant wrote: “Problem ist leider oft die Zeit, denn in den meisten Fällen dauert eine Unterrichtsstunde nicht wirklich 50 bzw. 45 Minuten

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(Unterbrechungen, administrative Aufgaben, …).“ [Unfortunately, time is often an issue because in most cases, a lesson is not really 45 or 50 minutes long (interruptions, administrative tasks, …)]. The second teacher who provided a response to the open-ended question stated that he or she would not adopt an entire lesson as it is presented in the reading project but rather use individual facets of it. This teacher states that some activities would not be used because even though each lesson consists of excellent parts, it would be difficult to include all of them in only one lesson respectively. The third teacher formulated the following criticism:

Lesson 3 setzt voraus, dass alle Schüler ihre reading HÜ absolviert haben, was nach meiner Erfahrung in den seltensten Fällen zutrifft – dadurch die group activities unrealistisch; jedenfalls zu lang – allein die Einleitung / Erklärung würde viel zu lange dauern für 1 UE. Für alle lessons gilt – zu lang, zu wenig Zeit eingeplant, zu viel verschiedene Aktivitäten für eine UE; insgesamt zu viel Beschäftigung mit dem selben Thema, den Büchern (die oft gar nicht gelesen werden) und der Textsortenthematik.

[Lesson 3 presupposes that all of the students have done their reading home exercise, which hardly ever happens, in my experience – thus, the group activities are not realistic; definitely too long – the introduction / explanation by itself would take too long for one lesson. With regard to all of the lessons – they are too long, too little time is allowed for, too many different activities for one lesson; all in all, too much engagement with the same topic, the same books (which often students do not even read) and the topic area of text types.]

The last closed-ended question of this question group required the participants to indicate which of the lessons they thought could still be optimized or improved. The teachers were provided with a list of all the lessons and could choose one or multiple of them. It can be said that this question matrix led to an interesting result, as the option “none of the lessons” was chosen by eight of the teachers (80%); however, both of the options “Lesson 3” and “Lesson 6” were chosen by three teachers each (30% per option). The remaining lesson (1, 2, 4, 5 and 7) could be improved according to two teachers per lesson (20% each). The following graph illustrates the findings of this question:

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Figure 20: Results of the question: "Welche der folgenden Unterrichtsstunden könnten noch optimiert / verbessert werden?" Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

In the context of an open-ended clarification question, which gave participants the opportunity to explain their choices of lessons in the previous question, three answers were collected. The first respondent wrote: “Wenn Optimierung und Straffung, dann muss dies im Hinblick auf die jeweilige Klasse gemacht werden!!!“ [Optimization and shortening has to be done in respect of the respective group of students!!!] The second teacher who answered this open- ended question referred to the issue of time constraints and argues that more time would need to be arranged and that the activities are good but simply too much in terms of quantity and choice of activities. All in all, this teacher suggests, less should be prepared for the same amount of time and it makes sense to have “Mut zur Lücke!” [Dare to leave some vacant space!].

The third respondent provided a detailed set of recommendations as to how to improve individual lessons. Either the first lesson should allow for more time to be spent on the activity “Introduction of books”, which the teacher considers as an excellent activity, or an entire lesson should be dedicated to the activity. Furthermore, there would need to be more time for properly explaining the homework given in the first lesson, as it appears to be rather demanding to the teacher. In Lesson 2, more time could be spent on the activities regarding the concepts, as the participant thinks those activities are very good. Also, more time should be spent on the discussion regarding the ‘The true cost’ trailer. With regard to the third lesson, the respondent suggests making more time available for the speaking activity in the beginning and to consider not using the letter in class but rather as a homework activity. The criticism, 113

which is voiced concerning the fourth lesson, is that the time ascribed to the first couple of activities is not realistic and that the speaking part, too, should be given more time. The last piece of advice refers to lesson 6 and the fact that it would make more sense to ask the students to finish the texts at home instead of letting them finish their writing at the beginning of the lesson because with writing activities you never know how long they are going to take.

5.5 Question group 5: Feedback on selected activities

The first three questions of this question group refer to activities which are related to the books which are supposed to be read in the course of the reading project. Those questions are followed by four questions asking the teachers to give feedback on the 100-point-project, which is used as an assessment tool in the reading project. The questions were administered in the form of statements which the respondents were asked to rate on a scale ranging from “I fully agree” to “I do not agree at all”.

The first statement was: “Die Activity Introduction of books (Lesson 1) bietet den SchülerInnen ausreichend Informationen zu den Büchern, um ihnen die Wahl eines der drei Bücher zu ermöglichen.“ [The activity Introduction of books (lesson 1) provides the students with sufficient information so as to enable them to choose one of the books.] One teacher (10%) chose the option “I tend to agree”, while six teachers (60%) indicated that they agreed and three teachers (30%) claimed to fully agree.

Figure 21: Results of the question: "Die Activity "Introduction of books" (Lesson 1) bietet den SchülerInnen ausreichend Informationen zu den Büchern, um ihnen die Wahl eines der drei Bücher zu ermöglichen." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019. 114

The next statement referred to the activity “Let’s talk” of lesson 3 and required the participants to the rate the extent to which it facilitates an exchange of opinions on what the students have read up until the point of doing the activity: “Die Activity Let’s talk ist dazu geeignet, SchülerInnen zu einem Austausch über das bisher Gelesene anzuregen.” Again, one teacher (10%) tends to agree. Of the remaining nine teachers, three (30%) agreed and six (60%) fully agreed with the statement.

Figure 22: Results of the question: "Die Activity "Let's talk" (Lesson 3) ist dazu geeignet, SchülerInnen zu einem Austausch über das bisher Gelesene anzuregen." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

The last question which deals with activities concerned with the books was in how far the activity “Book club discussion”, which is to be found in the fifth lesson, provides the students with sufficient opportunities for sharing their thoughts and feelings concerning the books. According to five teachers (50%) who fully agreed with the statement, the activity enables students to exchange their views to a sufficient extent. Four teachers (40%) agreed with the statement and one teacher (10%) tended to agree with it.

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Figure 23: Results of the question: "Die jeweiligen Fragen der Activity "Book club discussion" (Lesson 5) geben den SchülerInnen ausreichende Möglichkeiten, ihre eigenen Ansichten und Gefühle zu den Büchern zu teilen." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

The first question of this question group which deals with the 100-point-project asked the participants in how far they agreed with the statement that the 100-point-project is a form of assessment which is motivating to students. One teacher (10%) chose the answer “I tend to disagree”; however, five teachers (50%) agreed with the statement and the remaining four (40%) strongly agreed with it, which means that the vast majority of participants, namely 90% of them, agreed with the statement.

Figure 24: Results of the question: "Das 100-point-project stellt eine für SchülerInnen motivierende Art der Leistungsbeurteilung dar." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

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The second question concerning the 100-point-project was whether the tasks were chosen in a way which reflects and does justice to the existence of different types of learners. Two teachers (20%) tended to agree with the statement, three respondents (30%) agreed with it and half of the survey population, meaning five teachers (50%), fully agreed with it.

Figure 25: Results of the question: "Die Aufgabenstellungen der einzelnen 100-point-projects sind so gewählt, dass der Existenz verschiedener Lerntypen ausreichend Rechnung getragen wird." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

The third question on the 100-point-project refers to the presentation of results in the reading project’s last lesson. The statement the respondents were asked to either agree or disagree with was the way in which students were asked to present their results in class allows for each students’ performance to get a sufficient amount of attention. The options “I tend to disagree” and “I tend to agree” were each chosen by one teacher (10% per option). Four teachers (40%) agreed with the statement and the remaining four participants (also 40%) fully agreed with it.

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Figure 26: Results of the question: "Die Art der Präsentation des 100-point-projects lässt es zu, dass der Leistung jedes/jeder SchülerInnen ausreichend Aufmerksamkeit zukommt." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

The last question of this question group was formulated in the following way: “Die Art der Präsentation des 100-point-projects ermöglicht es SchülerInnen, ihre eigene Leistung im Vergleich mit jener der MitschülerInnen selbstreflektierend einzuschätzen“. [The way in which the 100-point-project’s results are presented enables students to assess their own achievements in comparison with their peers’ achievements in a self-reflecting manner.] One participant (10%) tended to agree, six participants (60%) agreed and three participants (30%) fully agreed with this statement.

Figure 27: Results of the question: "Die Art der Präsentation des 100-point-projects ermöglicht es SchülerInnen, ihre eigene Leistung im Vergleich mit jener der MitschülerInnen selbstreflektierend einzuschätzen." Source: Own survey, conducted 2018-2019.

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5.6 Question groups 6, 7 and 8: Motivation, Language Use and Sustainable Thinking

In the following, the results of question groups 6, 7 and 8 will be presented in combination. The reason as to why the findings of these question groups are presented in this condensed way is that each question group consisted of one statement which participants were required to react to with regard to each of the activities of the reading project. In order to make the analysis of data more clear, in this section, the individual activities will be discussed in the order in which they appear in the reading project and in terms of each of the three statements asked in question groups 6, 7 and 8. The three statements the respondents were asked to rate in terms of the degree to which they agreed with them were the following:

Question group 6: “Die genannte Activity ist für SchülerInnen motivierend; daher, sie weckt das Interesse der SchülerInnen und regt zur Mitarbeit an.“ [The activity motivates students; meaning that it arouses the students‘ interest and encourages them to participate in completing the task.]

Question group 7: “Die genannte Activity fördert den aktiven Gebrauch von Sprache (schriftlich oder mündlich); daher, sie regt SchülerInnen dazu an, geschriebene oder gesprochene Sprache zu verwenden.“ [The activity facilitates active language use (written or spoken); meaning that it encourages students to use written or spoken language.]

Question group 8: “Die genannte Activity regt SchülerInnen dazu an, eine nachhaltigere Denkweise anzunehmen.“ [The activity encourages students to adopt a way of thinking which is more oriented towards sustainability.]

Activity: What am I wearing today? Seven out of ten respondents (70%) fully agree that the activity is capable of motivating students, while three respondents (20%) agree. With regard to the question whether the activity facilitates active language use, seven teachers (70%) fully agreed, three teachers (30%) agreed and one teacher (10%) tended to agree. The lowest level of agreement was reached for the statement that the activity facilitates sustainable thinking. Only five teachers (50%) fully agreed, while three teachers (30%) agreed, one teacher (10%) tended to agree and the remaining teacher (10%) tended to disagree.

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What am I wearing today? 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Ich stimme gar Ich stimme Ich stimme Ich stimme Ich stimme zu Ich stimme nicht zu nicht zu eher nicht zu eher zu völlig zu