TEACHER EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: PRINCIPLES AND IMPLICATIONS

Abstract

Education for sustainable development policy in Morocco places a great deal of emphasis on upgrading human resources within and through the education sector. In this context, the present article outlines and discusses the major defining principles and goals of education for sustainable development in Morocco and its implications for language teachers’ education and training in general and English language teachers’ education in particular. It highlights the need for providing teachers with critically grounded fundamental education, reinforcing the effectiveness of their continuing training, and promoting their interest in and abilities of reflective practice, particularly action research, which constitutes one of the most important components and driving forces for their self-motivated and sustainable lifelong professional development. It argues that teachers’ education and training should aim to help teachers to acquire and sustain their sociolinguistic and pedagogical knowledge, expertise, values, and competencies necessary for them to cope with the varied and ever-changing needs of different groups and generations of students to use particular languages for communication in different academic and professional contexts. To this end, it suggests the need for English language education, including English language teachers’ education programme to include more space for teaching English for specific communicative purposes (ESCP). This would largely respond to the needs of the country for English as the most widely used foreign language in various key domains such as science and technology, as well as the increasingly emerging needs of students to use English for communication in various academic and professional contexts.

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