DOI: 10.16986/hunefd.1805308 ISSN: 2536-4758

Sustainability and English Teachers' Professional Development Needs in the Era of Türkiye Century Education Model

Eda Nur Özcan, Esim Gursoy
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The Türkiye Century Education Model, the recent curriculum reform, positions sustainability literacy as an explicit goal of English language learning and expects teachers to integrate sustainability-related themes and competencies into ELT (English Language Teaching) classrooms. However, sustainability is often treated as the responsibility of other subject areas; thus, there is limited evidence on whether English teachers possess the sustainability-related competencies and receive professional support needed to meet the curricular expectations. Addressing this gap, the present study investigated English teachers’ sustainability-related competencies through the lens of environmental literacy and examined how teachers understand ESD, integrate sustainability into ELT and articulate their professional development needs. Using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, an online Environmental Literacy Questionnaire was administered to 372 English teachers, followed by semi-structured interviews with 12 participants. The quantitative results indicated broadly positive orientations toward sustainability and sustainability integration into ELT. However, participants demonstrated only moderate environmental knowledge and engagement in environmental behaviors, with routine low-cost actions reported more frequently than civic or collective forms of participation. Qualitative findings converged with these patterns. Most teachers supported sustainability integration in principle but reported limited familiarity with ESD and tended to address sustainability mainly when coursebooks thematized it. Only a small minority described sustained integration, typically under more flexible school conditions. Overall, the findings suggest that successful implementation of sustainability will require systematic, practice-oriented professional training that strengthens conceptual understanding of ESD/SDGs, models ELT-appropriate pedagogies, and supports materials adaptation within curricular constraints.

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