Empathizing: the key to learner-centered language learning design

While ESL students in the US benefit from living in a country where their target language is dominant, learners living in countries where English is not dominant—or even rarely spoken—demand different language learning designs than those of ESL approaches. Understanding the differences in these two scenarios to inform design decisions is therefore necessary. Nonetheless, just because a group of ESL students in the US have similar access to the language, it does not mean that one approach or design is enough to meet all of this group's demands. Similarly, English learners in different parts of the world where English is not spoken will also demand different designs. On a more granular level, human-centered or learner-centered designs may be adopted. Human-centered design and learner-centered design are related to designing for individuals who bring diverse experiences, backgrounds, personalities, preferences, needs, and questions to a learning environment.

Let's now consider a group of Latin Americans learning English in a one-month English program in South America. The group is made up by twenty adult learners ages 18-65, all beginners. The youngest participant (18 years old) has been to the US a couple of times in his teenage years, and was raised by bilingual parents who always exposed him to TV and music in English. In this group, there's also a couple of 26-year-olds who are now getting ready to immigrate to the US after being unemployed in their home country for the past 6 months. They did not go to college and have never been exposed to the English language through music, TV , or traveling. Finally, there's a subgroup of 5 retired participants, who are looking to learn the language so they can travel in their free time. The differences we see within this group of learners should inform our design decisions, so the learning experience they go through is effective for all of them. These individuals' previous experiences have led to their current needs and preferences. Some of them are more confident when practicing speaking with the whole class while others aren't. Some bring insecurities that affect their learning experiences. Keeping that in mind shapes how content is delivered and practiced. And the instructors' communication with learners is more effective when it takes into account learners' interests and difficulties. Empathizing with learners leads to designing for inclusion and confidence, which empowers them to take ownership of their learning processes. When learners come to class and find instructors who take the time to listen to them, they feel welcomed and included. When these instructors go beyond and design for confidence, they do not only listen, but also take notes, and systematically shape classes, materials, and communication to address learners' specific demands. It is also worthwhile mentioning that these instructors or educators should not be listening to give immediate responses, but rather to ideate and iterate on learning solutions that will go through development, testing, and potentially implementation. Learner-centered designers aim to understand how learners see and make sense of the world around them. It involves instructional design principles, but go beyond in embracing ambiguity and designing for nuanced needs.