Abstract Book of the 7th International Conference on Future of Social Sciences and Humanities
Year: 2025
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An ESG perspective on Learning Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth: Everyday English in EFL Teaching and Learning
Dr. Hsing-chin Lee
ABSTRACT:
Voluntary nonfinancial Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosure is a budding and important topic that has attracted both researchers and capital market in recent years. This study looks into the ESG related materials in Ken Follett’s historical novels, namely The Pillars of the Earth. It examines how can literary works offer EFL learners an entry point into reading as continuous sources of information and joy in ESG era. The objective of this study is to initiate interests in finding ESG concepts long consolidated in everyday life in historical novels. As lifelong learning becomes increasingly necessary in modern world, for EFL learners, continuingly learning English is essential. This study pinpoints the everyday English, real life ESG-related materials arraying in the novel. Moreover, how can English teachers significantly raise EFL learners’ ESG awareness in reading. The research outcomes might contribute to general life-long interests in reading English literary works. Also, the fact that ESG concepts accommodated in novels might also be suggested widely for the future focus of life-long English learning. A data-driven learning and keywords-in-context approach is used to help examine leaners’ potential understanding of ESG information while reading English novels; in addition, how does leaners’ reader-level observation of ESG information affect their motivations of continuous reading. This research also discusses the role of ESG information as a preferable type of intermediary awareness in EFL learning and suggests opportunities for future research.
Keywords: ESG-related information, lifelong, Data-driven Learning (DDL), continuous reading, Ken Follett’s novel