Pre-service EFL Teachers’ Awareness Levels and Perceptions of the Sustainable Development Goals

Year 2026, Volume: 2 Issue: 1, 11 - 20, 28.01.2026

Saadet Apa Öztürk , Feryal Cubukcu

Abstract

The role of sustainability and sustainable development goals in teacher education is indispensable, as both of them support the awareness of teachers and their learners on sustainable development and its goals. Therefore, giving importance to Education for Sustainable Development Goals in teacher education is a fundamental issue to facilitate the learning process by contributing to a sustainable future. This study is part of a ten-week Sustainable Development Project implemented as a doctoral thesis and aims to investigate the pre-service EFL teachers’ awareness levels and perceptions of the importance of the Sustainable Development Goals. The study was conducted with eight pre-service EFL teachers selected on a voluntary basis from the study group of the project. The study group of the project was trained for ten weeks with the reading texts of which are formed by sustainable development themes. In order to examine their awareness levels and perceptions of the importance of the Sustainable Development Goals in foreign language teaching and learning, semi-structured interviews were conducted. The data gathered from the interviews were analyzed by thematic coding. The results demonstrate that half of the pre-service EFL teachers were not familiar with the concept of the Sustainable Development Goals before the training they received. However, most of them expressed that they already knew SDG1: No Poverty, SDG4: Quality Education, SDG5: Gender Equality, and SDG13: Climate Action. The results also revealed that pre-service EFL teachers consider the Sustainable Development Goals very important for educational development, as these goals may help both teachers and students in language teaching and learning.

Keywords

Language teaching and learning , sustainable development goals , teacher education

Supporting Institution

This study was supported by the TÜBİTAK Scientist Training Support Programs Presidency (BİDEB), 2211-National Graduate Scholarship Program.”

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