The study of ecolinguistics to date has been reserved for the field of discourse analysis. However, applying ecolinguistics in pedagogical contexts is a promising way to increase learners’ critical language awareness. To realize this potential, one needs validated measures to quantify learners’ critical language awareness in ecological contexts to conduct research in this field. In the absence of any instrument to measure language learners’ ecological critical language awareness, the researchers of this study developed and validated a questionnaire. An exploratory sequential mixed methods design with two phases was employed. In the exploratory and qualitative phases, the researchers defined the construct and developed a questionnaire based on the underlying factors of the construct. After taking several steps to ensure its content validity, the questionnaire was administered to 200 intermediate-level EFL learners who were selected through convenience sampling. In the quantitative phase, the participants were exposed to ecolinguiscally-informed teaching materials in an English pedagogical context. The collected data were analyzed, and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), Cronbach alpha coefficient for reliability indices, and model evaluation estimates were run to ensure the measure’s reliability and validity. EFA substantiated the initial components of the six-factor tentative construct. CFA gave statistical support to the six components as well. All components enjoyed high-reliability estimates. The calculated model-fit estimates verified the CFA model as a valid measure of ecological critical language awareness. The developed measure paves the way for further empirical investigation of ways to raise learners’ ecological critical language awareness in EFL contexts. Manuscript profile

Our planet faces major environmental issues that must be addressed through ecological initiatives, education, and awareness raising. In language education, ecolinguistics has grown substantially during the last decade and has taken a cognitive step toward fostering and improving people’s ecological awareness; however, there was no mention of pedagogical practices of ecolinguistics rooted in theories of second language teaching and learning. Thus, the present study sought to apply a framework of English teaching based on the Activity Theory to raise EFL learners’ ecological critical language awareness. The researchers of the current quasi-experimental study employed a non-equivalent pretest and posttest control-group design to assess the effectiveness of using an AT-based framework in EFL classes to foster learners’ critical language awareness of ecological issues. An experimental group (n=45) and a control group (n=45) with intermediate-level members selected through convenience sampling took part in the study. The experimental group was taught with the AT-based framework, while the control group was not. The result of the independent samples t-test indicated that the ECLA of the experimental group had risen significantly compared to the control group. Also, the results of a series of paired samples t-tests comparing the pretest and posttest of the experimental group’s score on each domain of the ECLA showed that the learners’ awareness of all six domains had significantly improved. The study suggests that implementing the AT-based framework to teach ecolinguistics in language classes can be a promising way to raise learners’ ECLA. Manuscript profile