Design Thinking in World Language Classes
Teachers can use the five-stage approach of design thinking to boost students’ engagement, motivation, and comprehension.
The best part is that the design process lends itself to a variety of situations in world language classes. It can work in everything from project units to daily lessons to warm-up activities. The process can also be adapted to a variety of language levels. Of course, the process becomes more in-depth as learners advance in proficiency, but with a bit of scaffolding, even novice-level learners can experience designing for someone else.
Design thinking, a staged process and approach to problem-solving that fosters innovative thinking and human-centered solutions, offers an excellent vehicle for second-language acquisition in world language classrooms. Each stage of the process naturally works all three modes of communication—interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational—allowing learners to exercise their language skills at every proficiency level. Because problem-solving is at the core of design thinking, just as it is at the core of second-language acquisition, learners strengthen their skills in the target language by devising innovative solutions to authentic, real-world challenges.
Stage 1: Empathize
The first stage of design thinking invites learners to empathize, gaining a deep understanding of another person’s problems, realities, wants, and needs. For students to empathize with their peers, they must engage in conversation with them.
Stage 2: Define
The next stage of the design process is to define their partner’s problems. In my projects, I typically frame this as restating what their partner—their client—wants and needs, as well as making observations about their partner’s realities. At this stage, all learners are working primarily in the presentational mode because they are describing, explaining, and informing about their partner’s situation.
Stage 3: Ideate
Once the problem is defined, learners have to generate possible solutions, or ideate. For intermediate-level students, this phase lets them learn and practice the conditional mood, using the construction “What if we were to…” in a real-world context. Even novice-level learners can access this language if it’s taught as vocabulary.
Stage 4: Prototype
In the prototype stage, learners translate their ideas into the real world in a physical form. Since a prototype is meant to be a quick, mock-up test of an idea, students often do it individually. Language work, therefore, comes as learners document their learning in either a journal or, as in my classes, their ePortfolio. Since prototyping can sometimes span several class periods, learners are asked to put artifacts in their portfolios in the form of images or video. I typically require them to describe the artifact, recount the work they did that day, state their successes and their struggles, and reflect on what they would have done differently.
This reflection process is open enough that it accommodates most proficiency levels, even novice-level learners. Descriptive reflection, which lets students describe their creation and the process, can be done with even the earliest novice levels. My students’ sentences at this level are often quite repetitive (e.g., “There is a red pen. There is a green book bag.”), but they’re easily modifiable, which facilitates self-expression, a high-impact practice in language classrooms. At the intermediate level, I put more emphasis on describing the process so that learners get frequent practice with the past tenses.
Stage 5: Test
Finally, learners test their prototype by presenting it to their partner. This phase allows learners to practice a wide range of structures, but I like to use it to emphasize the past tenses—talking about their thought process—and the future tenses as they talk about how their user will engage with their end product or solution.
The best part is that the design process lends itself to a variety of situations in world language classes. It can work in everything from project units to daily lessons to warm-up activities. The process can also be adapted to a variety of language levels. Of course, the process becomes more in-depth as learners advance in proficiency, but with a bit of scaffolding, even novice-level learners can experience designing for someone else.
