Journal on English as a Foreign Language (JEFL)
Vol 16 No 2 (2026): Issued in September 2026

Pedagogical pathways to sustainability in ELT: A systematic literature review and bibliometric mapping of Eco-ELT research (2015–2025)

Ahmad Nizar Zuhdi Al-Hakimi (Universitas Islam Negeri Walisongo, Semarang, Indonesia)
Lulut Widyaningrum (Universitas Islam Negeri Walisongo, Semarang, Indonesia)



Article Info

Publish Date
06 Sep 2026

Abstract

The growing ecological crisis has increased the urgency of integrating sustainability into education, including English language teaching (ELT). Although ecological English language teaching (Eco-ELT) has received increasing scholarly attention, existing studies remain conceptually fragmented and pedagogically uneven. This study aims to systematically map the development of Eco-ELT research published between 2015 and 2025 by identifying dominant pedagogical models, theoretical orientations, and reported learning outcomes. Employing a Systematic Literature Review guided by PRISMA, bibliographic data were retrieved from the Scopus database. A total of 37 empirical studies were selected from an initial dataset of 185 publications. The study combined bibliometric mapping using VOSviewer with qualitative thematic analysis. The findings reveal four dominant pedagogical clusters in Eco-ELT research: environmental content-based ELT, critical eco-literacy tasks, eco-critical literature and multimodal texts, and place-based community projects. The review further shows that sustainability integration in ELT is predominantly mediated through teacher agency, instructional design, and curriculum practices, while deeper ecological epistemologies and long-term behavioral transformation remain underexplored. This study contributes an integrative conceptual framework that links pedagogical approaches, theoretical orientations, and sustainability objectives within Eco-ELT research.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

jefl

Publisher

Subject

Humanities Education Languange, Linguistic, Communication & Media Social Sciences

Description

Journal on English as a Foreign Language (JEFL) is a peer reviewed and open access journal on teaching and learning English as a foreign and second language. The journal follows a double blind review policy. The primary objective of this journal is to publish research based articles that delve into ...