As the world is changing in accordance with globalization, so are education institutions including higher education. With the specification of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations for a changing world, so as to respond to the demands of the current era, many higher education institutions around the world started to incorporate different aspects of SDGs into their curricula. Being one of the SDGs, Quality Education (SDG4) requires ensuring relevant learning for citizenship in a global world, which forms the main pillar for mainstreaming Global Citizenship Education at all levels to engage students in global issues and instill them with necessary competencies for appropriate and adequate comprehension of issues concerning the SDGs. In addition, to raise graduates equipped with skills and competencies required in the 21st century workplace, higher education institutions are continuously innovating their curricula to integrate 21st Century 4Cs skills - Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, Creativity- as part of the global sustainable development profile of engineers.
Recognizing that the profile of engineers is a global one with English as one of the core skills, ITU School of Foreign Languages (SFL) has taken the necessary steps to implement English as a primary sustainable development skill for its future graduates. Accordingly, ITU SFL started to offer a new and innovative course titled “ING 100-English through Global Goals”. ING 100 is an interdisciplinary course of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) that will help students develop their English language skills through 21st century core skills- the 4 Cs (critical-thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity) and United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals that have become core to the engineering professional profile. The course was designed to respond to the needs of engineering students in a variety of disciplines in terms of English communication and it started to be implemented as a compulsory course in ITU in the 2021-2022 academic year fall term. In addition to developing students’ English communication, academic and soft skills, the focus on the SDGs encourages students to consider their role as responsible 21st century global citizens. The objectives of this course can be summarized as below:
While the content focuses mainly on SDGs and is supplemented by activities requiring active participation of and collaboration among students, assessment is conducted through group poster presentations, integrated communication tasks and group projects in line with the objectives of the course and requirements of 21st century learning and assessment as a whole.