ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how environmental issues can be incorporated into Japanese college language curricula through interdisciplinary collaboration. Using the Foreign Languages Across the Curriculum (FLAC) framework, which challenges learners to develop foreign language (L2) proficiency by studying non-language content taught in the L2, two interdisciplinary courses focusing on environmental ethics were designed and concurrently taught, one in English and the other in Japanese. The fluid usage of two languages in the Japanese (FLAC) course, i.e., translanguaging, facilitated learners’ discussion of environmental justice based on class, race, gender discrimination, and understanding of institutional dichotomies (state versus people, city versus village, and power versus subaltern) through work with two environmental case studies. Two critical literacy practices in translation are also examined to discuss meaning-making processes across languages. This chapter addresses the importance of environmental sustainability as content in Japanese advanced language study, offering pedagogical suggestions for future L2 instruction.
