Integrating CLIL and green education to foster environmental awareness in pre-service English teachers

The paper presents an applied approach to integrating Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) with Green Education to enhance environmental literacy and pedagogical readiness among pre-service English teachers. It outlines the authors’ experience in designing and implementing a six-week CLIL module on sustainability topics such as eco-tourism, recycling, and climate change. Conducted with 36 students from “Ion Creangă” State Pedagogical University of Chișinău, the study employed a mixed-method design combining questionnaires, reflections, and classroom observations to measure both cognitive and attitudinal change. Results indicated a significant improvement in participants’ environmental awareness, motivation, and understanding of teaching as a vehicle for social responsibility. The research was carried out within the national project Integrating and Promoting Green Education in the Initial Training of English Language Teachers (code 25.80012.0807.56SE), developed under Moldova’s strategic direction of Innovative Educational Technologies and Products. The findings demonstrate that CLIL, when enriched with sustainability principles, provides a transformative pedagogical framework that links language learning, critical thinking, and ecological values, shaping educators prepared to inspire change. The findings should be interpreted in light of the study’s quasi-experimental design, which did not include a control group and was limited to a six-week intervention.