In English as a foreign language (EFL) classes, teachers face the common challenge of demonstrating the importance of English to students who do not have much contact with users of English in their daily life. This often translates to a lack of progress in English language learning in settings such as Thailand, where in spite of the emphasis put on English teaching by the 1999 National Education Act (Office of the National Education Commission 1999), the policies implemented have led to little progress in students' English proficiency (Franz and Teo 2017). Awareness-raising workshops, in which participants deeply engage with topics related to critical social issues, have successfully demonstrated their capacity to motivate and change the participants' attitudes (Aarts and van Schagen 2006; Sabitha 2008). This article explains the rationale behind using this method--applying the global-citizenship approach to teaching advocated by UNESCO (2015)--to improve students' attitudes toward English learning. The idea is that those who are emotionally moved by the workshop content will feel an increased sense of duty, or intrinsic desire, to learn English. They consequently perceive English as a tool for learning about a topic they are concerned with rather than as a school subject and view English learning as an opportunity rather than as a burden. The underlying assumption of this method is that participants in a workshop on sustainable development (SD) will realize that English is essential for dealing with SD issues. This article also describes the workshop and gives recommendations to teachers who would like to carry out a similar workshop themselves