GRREN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CURRICULUM: A LANGUAGE LEARNING STRATEGY FOR RESOLVING ENVIRONMENTAL CRISES

At a time when the world is discombobulated with environmental challenges of varying magnitude and when action is required to tackle the challenges headlong, research aimed at using language as a solution to the persistent environmental crises and to create academic awareness of the existential threat becomes compellingly desirable. Green English Language generally refers to the application of environmentally and ecologically friendly content in the English language classrooms aimed to resolve environmental problems. A number of research questions were raised in the course of this investigation as a guide to the study. The paper is theoretically underpinned by a combination of theoretical paradigms: Ecolinguistics Theory and Environmental Education Theory. In carrying out this work, a mixed-method approach, which consisted of qualitative and quantitative methods, was adopted by using structured and unstructured questionnaires to elicit data from secondary school teachers. Over five hundred (500) questionnaires were distributed to public secondary school teachers across the six (6) geo-political zones in Nigeria. A stratified-purposive sampling of such government-owned schools was applied. The key finding revealed that Green English contents are alien to our schools’ curriculum and syllabus. In spite of the possible challenges it poses, the Green English Language curriculum is a welcome paradigm by over 92% of the respondents. On this account, it is suggested that there is no other ripe time than now for the nation’s schools to rebrand their existing curriculum and accommodate Green English as a language learning strategy.