Learning to think and act in sustainable ways is largely a question of language skills, i.e., to understand the meaning of sustainability and related terms and to understand the grammar — language game — of sustainability. To help university students acquire these skills, we developed two role-play exercises for engaging with issues of ethics and sustainability. In one exercise, students in a university course on theory and methodology in interactive media technology prepared for the exercise by reading three short texts on ethical theories, and a scenario description. In the role-play exercise, students took on various roles to enact the scenario. In the second exercise, students in a course on intercultural communication were tasked to analyse and discuss the relevance of the United Nations 17 Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) for the course content. In the role play, the students had to summarise the discussions and advocate for their views. In both role-play exercises, students took on various roles to enact the scenario. Finally, there were debriefing sessions. Both courses were taught at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, during the academic year 2021-2022. In the paper, we summarise our findings, including strengths and weaknesses of role-play as a teaching method.