From “How are you feeling?” to “How can we help?”: Integrating SEL and the SDGs in ELT

 “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” (attributed to Aristotle)

“How are you feeling today?”

If you teach teenagers (or… humans), you’ve probably asked that question at some point. Sometimes you get a clear answer. Sometimes you get a shrug. Sometimes you get “I’m fine” in the same tone that clearly means “Please don’t ask again.”

Now here’s the next question—the one we don’t always ask:

“How can we help?”

That tiny shift, from checking in to taking action, is where Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can meet very naturally inside an English lesson.

In this article I’ll (a) clarify what SEL looks like in practical ELT terms, (b) show why the SDGs are a perfect “real-world syllabus”, and (c) offer classroom-ready ways to combine the two without turning your English class into either therapy or a geography lecture.

What we mean by SEL (and what we don’t)

CASEL defines SEL as the process through which young people and adults develop healthy identities, manage emotions, reach goals, show empathy, build relationships, and make responsible, caring decisions. (CASEL, n.d.). (CASEL)

The CASEL framework groups this into five competencies that are easy to translate into classroom behaviours:
• Self-awareness (naming feelings, noticing strengths and challenges)
• Self-management (regulating emotions, persisting, setting goals)
• Social awareness (perspective-taking, empathy, respect for diversity)
• Relationship skills (communicating, cooperating, resolving conflict)
• Responsible decision-making (ethical choices, considering consequences)

If you’re thinking, “But I already do most of this…”, you’re probably right. Many everyday ELT routines—pair work, group projects, feedback, reflection, managing anxiety around speaking—are already SEL in disguise.

What SEL is not: a new “programme” you must buy, a set of slogans on a classroom wall, or a requirement to become a counsellor. SEL in ELT is mostly about designing lessons so that emotions, relationships and agency are treated as part of learning, not as “noise” we hope will go away.

A quick evidence check (because this is ELT, not wishful thinking)

SEL isn’t just “nice to have”. Large research syntheses of school-based SEL programmes report benefits not only in social and emotional skills and classroom behaviour, but also in academic outcomes; importantly, follow-up studies suggest these gains can last beyond the end of the intervention. (Durlak et al., 2011; Taylor et al., 2017). (PubMed)

So when we embed SEL moves into our lessons—supportive routines, better groupwork, purposeful reflection—we’re not “taking time away” from learning. We’re protecting the conditions that make learning possible.

Why SDGs belong in a language lesson

The SDGs are 17 global goals that frame major challenges such as poverty, health, education, inequality, and climate. (United Nations, n.d.). (sdgs.un.org)

So why bring them into ELT?

Because SDG topics are:
• Meaningful: students care (or at least have opinions)
• Language-rich: they create a need for reading, listening, debating, persuading and presenting
• Agency-friendly: they invite the question “What can we do?” rather than “What should we memorise?”

And that last point matters. If SDG lessons become “doom lessons” (“Everything is terrible and you should feel guilty”), we have missed the point. The goal is to help learners with the HOW, not the WHAT: how to analyse, how to collaborate, how to communicate, how to take small, realistic action.

The bridge: seven practical ways to integrate SEL + SDGs

Below are seven integration routes (think of them as lesson “lenses”). You can use one, or mix two or three in the same unit.

1) Introduce global themes through language tasks
Start small: choose a goal that fits your syllabus topic (food → SDG 2/12; travel → SDG 11/13; health → SDG 3). Use the SDG as a context for the language you were going to teach anyway.
SEL focus: social awareness.
Classroom move: after a short text/video, ask “Whose voices do we hear? Whose voices don’t we hear?” Students practise stance language (“In my view…”, “I agree because…”) while learning perspective-taking.

2) Foster collaboration and teamwork
SDG work is rarely a solo project. Make the unit collaborative on purpose: jigsaw reading, roles in groups (facilitator, summariser, language monitor, designer), and shared products.
SEL focus: relationship skills.
Classroom move: teach “team language” explicitly (interrupting politely, inviting quieter classmates, disagreeing kindly). Then assess it lightly: “One thing our group did well today was…”.

3) Build self-reflection and goal-setting into SDG work
Even short reflections can connect language learning with personal growth. After an SDG task, ask students to set a “micro-goal” for the next lesson—language (e.g., “use two modal verbs”) and SEL (e.g., “ask one follow-up question”).
SEL focus: self-awareness + self-management.
Classroom move: a 2-minute exit ticket: “Today I felt… because… Next time I will…”.

4) Use SDG issues to develop critical thinking
SDGs are interconnected; that’s their power and their complexity. Use that complexity as a thinking workout. Compare solutions, spot trade-offs, look for evidence.
SEL focus: responsible decision-making.
Classroom move: run a structured mini-debate with sentence starters (“The strongest reason is…”, “A possible consequence is…”). Students practise hedging, cause–effect language and respectful disagreement.

5) Encourage civic engagement (scaled to your context)
Civic engagement doesn’t have to mean big campaigns. It can be “classroom-sized” action: a poster for water saving, a letter to the school, a mini-awareness video, a “change one habit for a week” challenge.
SEL focus: agency + self-efficacy.
Classroom move: make action realistic and local. Ask: “What is one thing we can influence this month?” Then celebrate effort, not perfection.

6) Use authentic materials
The SDGs come with an endless supply of authentic input: news clips, infographics, NGO websites, short interviews, photo stories.
SEL focus: empathy + media literacy.
Classroom move: before watching/reading, do an emotional “prediction check-in”: “What might you feel when you watch this? What might someone else feel?” Afterward, return to it.

7) Assess SEL competencies alongside language
Assessment is a message: “This matters.” You don’t need a complicated rubric. Start with one or two observable behaviours connected to your unit.
Classroom move: add a simple reflection scale (1–5) to your project: “I listened actively.” “I managed frustration.” “I considered another perspective.” “I contributed ideas.”

A sample 60–90 minute lesson: SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption) + “From feelings to help”

Level: B1–B2 teens/adults
Language aims: modals of advice/obligation (should / shouldn’t / must / have to), persuasive language
SEL aims: self-awareness (values), relationship skills (collaboration), responsible decision-making (consequences)

1) Warm-up check-in (5 minutes)
On the board: “Today I feel… because…” Students choose an emotion word (use a mini word bank). Optional: students can pass.

2) Input that doesn’t overwhelm (10 minutes)
Use an infographic or short text about food waste or fast fashion (keep it factual, not apocalyptic). Comprehension focus: numbers, causes, consequences.

3) Values line + functional language (10 minutes)
Give 4 statements: “I often buy things I don’t need.” “I always check where things are made.” etc. Students stand on a “agree–disagree” line (or do it digitally). Teach response frames: “That’s interesting—can you say more?” “I see your point, but…”.

4) Group problem-solving (20–25 minutes)
In groups, students design a “1-week challenge” for the school/community. Requirements:
• 3 rules (must / have to)
• 3 pieces of advice (should / shouldn’t)
• a slogan
• one way to measure success
Assign roles, and rotate them halfway through so everyone practises leadership and listening.

5) Present + peer feedback (10 minutes)
Groups present. Feedback must include one language comment and one teamwork comment:
• “A phrase you used well was…”
• “One teamwork move I noticed was…”

6) The key question (5 minutes)
Students choose ONE realistic action from the ideas and commit to it (as a class, group, or individual). Keep it voluntary.

7) Reflection (5 minutes)
Students write 3 sentences:
• “Today I learned…”
• “Today I felt… when…”
• “Next time, I will…”

A quick planning checklist

When planning SEL + SDGs, these questions keep me balanced:
• Which SDG theme fits my syllabus topic this month?
• Which one SEL competency do I want to make visible?
• What is the language payoff (functions, lexis, genre)?
• Where is the moment of collaboration (real interdependence)?
• Where is the moment of reflection (30 seconds is enough)?
• What is the “help” step—small, local, doable?

Final thought

If you only ever ask “How are you feeling?”, you build awareness. That’s good.

If you also ask “How can we help?”, you build agency—and that is where language learning becomes citizenship learning.

 

References

CASEL. (n.d.). Fundamentals of SEL.
Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D., & Schellinger, K. B. (2011). The impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 82(1), 405–432. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01564.x
Taylor, R. D., Oberle, E., Durlak, J. A., & Weissberg, R. P. (2017). Promoting positive youth development through school-based social and emotional learning interventions: A meta-analysis of follow-up effects. Child Development, 88(4), 1156–1171. doi:10.1111/cdev.12864
United Nations. (n.d.). The 17 Goals | Sustainable Development.

About the author

Eftychis Kantarakis (DELTA) is an English language teacher and teacher educator with a special interest in social and emotional learning, learner agency, and global citizenship education through ELT. He has presented at local and international events and enjoys turning “big ideas” into practical classroom routines.

 

Where do we go from here?

Is ELT in Greece the only option?

I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey…

I started teaching in a PLS in Keratsini at the age of 21. I stayed at that same school teaching for more than 10 years. I was convinced that ELT was something that happened on the main street of Amfiali in those 7 classrooms of that one school where I had been teaching. In the late 90s I decided to follow a DOTE (now DELTA) course, to find out what more there is to ELT. It was a step I took more out of curiosity than necessity. You see, I was complacent about teaching in Keratsini and I didn’t think I needed to do more.

When I got my Diploma, life changed! First, out of the blue, I was offered a job with one of the largest international publishers. It was then that I realized ELT in Greece is way more than what I thought. It allowed me to work as a consultant, an editor, a materials designer, and finally a teacher trainer.

I have now been training teachers in many countries in Europe and the Middle East, and that is an almost direct result of the training I had all those years ago. More importantly it derives from the realization that my training can never be enough! I need to learn more and find new ways to put that knowledge into practice.

Not so long ago, I decided to try and work at a summer school in the UK. First in Scotland and then in England. It turns out that to teach in one of those schools, you need to have training that involves observed lessons! University degrees were not important for my prospective employers! A CELTA, or even better a DELTA were the desired qualifications. Other similar certificates or Diplomas also counted. Teachers who teach strictly through the syllabus we use in Greece are at a disadvantage. If you believe that there must be two Junior classes, and then 4 or 5 senior classes till B2, then prepared to be amazed. If Use of English and Grammar are what rule your teaching, then you need to see things differently!

It really pays to be using a good book with a comprehensive Lesson Planner in your winter classes. One where the intro and the guidelines are based on sound methodology. Not overprinted Teacher Books that you simply “teach off the page”. Using a book like those from National Geographic Learning has helped me see things from a completely different perspective. Look out for books for the international market. Books that may well be used outside Greece.

If you are thinking of the prospects of expanding your professional horizon, you need to start doing things differently than everybody else. You have to be more in line with what happens in ELT outside Greece.

Training should stop 2 or 3 years AFTER you retire! NOT before!

First appeared as an article with ELT News on 19 July 2022 here:

https://www.eltnews.gr/where-do-we-go-from-here-is-elt-in-greece-the-only-option?

Biting the bullet, changing the Greek ELT

So, here is the YouTube video of the results of the survey on how to teach English from September 2020.


Thank you ELT News for the opportunity to present them.

How to teach English in Greece from September 2020

The results

On 27th April, about a month after the lockdown due to Covid-19 in Greece, I posted a questionnaire about the near future of English Language Teaching in Greece. As a teacher of English as a Foreign Language myself, but also as a teacher trainer working for an ELT publisher (National Geographic Learning) I had a burning desire to find out what my colleagues felt the future of our profession would be. 

Of course, I did start with some assumptions. Being a TESOL Greece member for more than 15 years and a Learning Technologies SIG coordinator for a few years as well, I could feel colleagues in my “network” would probably embrace the use of technology in a flash. Therefore, I knew I needed to expand beyond my immediate Professional Network. After all, feeling is one thing and knowing is another. Just like you should not bring a knife to a gun fight, you shouldn’t just bring a “sentiment” to a fact fight. And this looks more than just a fight. It looks like a full blown war!

I posted this questionnaire on my personal Facebook page and shared it with various PALSO groups and Foreign Language Teacher groups. I did not know what to expect in terms of participation. The results surprised me! It got more than 300 responses in the first 3 days! What is more 164 PLS (Private Language School) owners filled it in. The number is significant because it represents 2.5% of the total population of the PLS owners in Greece. 1 in 40 of you answered that. The final number reached 337 responses and it consisted of about an equal number of PLS owners and other ELT professionals. Obviously EFL teachers needed to talk!

Today I would like to share some of the findings of this mini survey and see if we can draw some conclusions about the future of ELT in Greece.

How long have you been teaching English?

First, I was amazed by the amount of experience gathered in the survey. Almost 70% had experience of over 15 years of ELT. This was not going to be just new teachers who want to change the world. This is a survey answered by people who have seen a lot in ELT in the past decade and a half. 

What do you think your teaching situation will be in September 2020?

The first question I wanted answered was about what ELT professionals felt their teaching situation would be, come September 2020. I put in 4 options which I thought were the most probable: 

• I will go back to teaching face-to-face. This was a one-time crisis.

• Teach face-to-face but be ready to change to online learning if need be.

• Blended Learning. Will teach mainly face-to-face but will incorporate online teaching as well.

• I am moving to completely teaching online. I will do limited face-to-face teaching.

In reality I wanted to see if people believed that this change in situation was here to stay or they were planning to go back to how things were before Covid-19. And if they believed that they would need to change, what sort of changes would they be willing to embrace?

I am not sure if I was surprised by the fact that ONLY 1.8% (6 people out of 337) stated that they believed this was a one-time crisis and they were planning to go back to business as usual. 

More than half said they would teach face-to-face but be ready to change to online learning when that was needed. Evidently, teachers know that they need to have a depository of material at the ready so as to use it outside the classroom. 

The number that did strike me was that of the almost 40% who said they were willing to move to (or maybe some of them just continue) Blending Learning, incorporating online teaching as well. I have been in the profession long enough to know that in the past this number was much lower. 

And I did not expect as many as 7.1% of the teachers to actually be willing to move completely to teaching online from now on, maybe incorporating some limited face-to-face teaching. 

For me online lessons are 

At the beginning of the lockdown there were two distinct schools of thought on what qualifies as Online Lessons. There were those who believed they should just focus on revisions and send worksheets to their students via email or some platforms, and mainly wait it all out. There were also those who believed they should proceed with their lessons and teach on the syllabus through distant teaching. Whether teachers should move on with their syllabus or not, was a hot topic to discuss. There were even strong arguments made against any type of synchronous teaching.

So, this question aimed at clarifying what teachers thought almost a month after schools had closed. For me it was not surprising that only 8% of the participating teachers believed online lessons were only for revision and 2.4% felt that it was just for fun activities. 

3 quarters of the subjects asked agree that online lessons are really just like regular lessons, moving on with the syllabus. I think it is safe to say that the majority of Greek ELT now believes teaching online is not just some emergency patchwork solution but has to be taken seriously as “proper” classroom lessons. As for the 13.6% that chose some "Other" option, they wrote at an open text field and their answers were a mixture of “all the above“ or comments on the real difficulties they are facing with the online teaching.   

For me synchronous lessons mean a video conference lesson

But after having established that most teachers consider Online Lessons as “actual lessons” and not something to help pass the time till we get back to class, I needed to know what the Greek ELT does perceive as “Online Lessons”. 

The first question on this referred to the synchronous lessons. For me it makes sense that teachers would consider this as the equivalent of actual teaching time in a physical classroom. My feeling was that for this reason it would be easier to accept. It involves more or less the same stakeholders (teachers, students, books, IWB software) and only a (significant) difference in the medium of delivery; Zoom or any other video conference programme instead of the face-to-face delivery in class. Therefore, the teachers would be more motivated to learn how to use it and have clearer expectations as to what they will do with it. 

I wanted to know if teachers would need digital versions of the Coursebooks for the student to work on or just need them to have the regular printed copies. Would sharing the material of the Interactive Whiteboard Software or an Interactive ebook be enough or do they need more? Teachers could choose more than one of the four options given.

So, I offered 4 choices to complete this statement:

For me synchronous lessons mean a video conference lesson:

• where I share the IWB software on my screen.

• where everyone has their printed copies of the books.

• some students have the printed books and some have digital versions

• without printed books but with digital versions of them

It seems that for the majority, synchronous lessons mean a video conference lesson where they can share their computer screen with the Interactive Whiteboard on. Half of them also believe students should have the printed books in front of them. The whole concept of students having digital forms of the coursebooks during the synchronous lessons does not seem so appealing. As some teachers have told me, they want the students to have the printed books as well, as otherwise they would have to juggle different windows or even different devices.

For me asynchronous lessons mean

My next question was about asynchronous learning. This is even trickier than synchronous teaching. It involves different kinds of preparation and quite some time devoted to setting up or checking of homework. A lot of the work done there is invisible to the untrained eye therefore it needs to stand out in order to make a difference. It is also quite demanding in terms of technical awareness on the part of the teachers as well as the students and / or the parents.

To my knowledge, during the early days of the lockdown teachers were looking for PDF worksheets from any source to use for revision. They sent these to students via email. Others also used an LMS (Learning Management System) that they already had. Some ELT publishers have made their own platforms (LMS or other) available to their customers. 

The material publishers offered was also of particular interest to me. For years I have been discussing different online practices with teachers. Do they want the students to do the material without the teachers checking (self-paced or as self-study)? Or do they want to have control over what the students are doing? Should student just do as much as they want when they want it, or should they do homework assigned to them? And what about other tools? Maybe outside an LMS. I mention Quizlet here, but I could have mentioned so many others, like Kahoot or Padlet e.t.c.

So, I offered 5 choices to complete this statement:

For me asynchronous lessons mean:

• sending students worksheets via email and receiving their answers

• using a Learning Management System (LMS) with resources I find or create

• students doing online practice provided by the publisher. I have to assign homework or check on them.

• students doing online practice provided by the publisher. I will not have to assign homework or check on them.

• using  Apps I find such as Quizlet or other

What became apparent is that sending students worksheets via email and receiving their answers is definitely not the “go to” solution for most teachers. Teachers now want a combination of tools. And a lot of them want to have control over what students are doing offline. The option of material for self-study, only attracted 16.9%, even though the material would be provided by the publisher. Not that they do not welcome the material from publishers, but they want to be able to control what students do with it and when.

For me, this shows quite some creativity from the teachers. Any teacher who would be too afraid to get their hands “dirty” with digital material would just go for the first option of emailing worksheets and expecting this to end some time soon so they can go back to “real” teaching. But a great number of teachers now want to use more digital material outside the classroom, in many cases creating said material themselves.

What kind of material will I use?

Now, this next question was key to my survey. What materials, including Coursebooks or Apps or LMS do teachers plan to use for the next year? I wanted to see if the word “change” would be used. It is a desired word, but it is also a scary word. They say, “everyone wants change, but no-ones wants to change”. Also, I wanted to see if anyone was considering moving to completely digital materials, giving up on the traditional printed published material. 

So, the options here for materials that teachers will use from September were: 

• Same as I have always used.

• Books that have some online resources (PDFs of worksheets)

• I need to change to books that offer options for online teaching, both synchronous and asynchronous.

• I will use only digital options. Digital Coursebook and online workbooks. No printed materials.

I was pleasantly surprised by the answers here. The most important finding was that as many as 57.6% of the teachers said they needed to change to books that offer options for both synchronous and asynchronous teaching. That is a very big percentage of the Greek ELT population! 6.2% even said that they are willing to go completely digital! 

14.8% say that some extra PDFs or worksheets would suffice. And 21.4% say they will use the same as they have always used. 

Now, in retrospect, this last option was a rather ambiquous one. At first it may seem like 21.4% of the teachers will just go back to teaching printed books with physical and online classes, but it may very well mean that many of them had already been doing online classes one way or another, so they will go on doing the same as usual. But this unclarified aspect of the question only enhances the possibility that more teachers will be implementing online and offline tools in their teaching.

More to come!

There were more findings coming out of this survey, but they will have to wait for a second post. But even from what we have seen so far, I think it becomes clear the Greek ELT is willing to bite the bullet and make the change! 

In the days after the survey, I have talked with people who want to move forward despite the lockdown. Also, there is a growing feeling that we will find ourselves in a similar lockdown situation maybe as early as October this year. Things might be even worse than they are now, but Greek ELT will be ready for it!

As I shared in the chat of one of the latest TESOL Greece webinars, prompted by the quote that "through difficulties we progress", WWII did wonders for technology in the 20th Century. It pushed the world to embrace advancements we had not dreamt of before. Maybe this is our war! Maybe this is our chance to shine!

Anyway, ELT can never bore you!