The marketing department at IGSE conducted an interview with the professor of ‘Design Thinking and ELT Content’, which is one of the newly opened courses in the wave of the fourth Industrial Revolution.

Q1. You have been teaching ‘Design Thinking and ELT Content’ as a part of the ELT Materials and Digital Content Development program at IGSE since the 2021 Fall semester. You are teaching graduate students who aim to become experts in English learning materials. Before going into the details of the course, could you tell us more about yourself?

My name is Ju Hyun Park. I am a language education researcher and a founder & CEO of Neuro Language Institute on Jeju Island, which is an AI-based edu-tech startup. From this semester, I have a weekly meeting on Zoom with other professors at IGSE to talk about design thinking and English education development. Do you know that edu-tech in the context of English education is named CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning)?

In this field, if you stop working or getting involved, you quickly lag behind technologically, and if you stop conducting research on education then your students end up suffering as they will use the end results of your development. So, although I am based in a corporation, I have been actively participating in academic conferences related to English education while also studying development-related subjects.

After graduating from English Education at Seoul National University, I worked as an English teacher at a middle school until 2000, when I became determined to change my career path to design. So, I took a design education course at ‘Institute’. This led me to enter the edu-tech business at an AI-based English education developing company. At CALL, English majors and teachers usually participate as content experts. My case was a bit different. I participated in content development as a team manager at a venture company and also took on the role of PM (Project Manager). But I was not very familiar with the development process, and although the company gave me special tutoring in IT, it couldn’t quench my thirst for organizing interactive media-based education. So, I took IGSE’s ELT Materials and Digital Content Development program to learn more about essential theories needed for development. Then, I returned to work and participated in the development of a language learning program that emphasized speaking as an education planning leader.

Edu-tech is rapidly progressing, but when we look into each team, they have no experience in the education field. Although they do research on it to develop efficient learning materials, I find it too wasteful for the industry as too much time and energy are spent on trial and error. So, I was determined to share what I had learned from working in edu-tech development as an English teacher through academic writing. I took a course on writing thesis papers in English, and that led me to participate in research with academia beginning in 2017. Now that I have come back to school, I really appreciate the opportunity to share my insights and concerns with fellow professors who are also my alumni and want to study together.

Q2. Many students would like to know what they can learn from ‘Design Thinking and ELT Content’ and whom the course has been designed for. Could you please tell us more about your course?

This course is about ELT content development planning, as it lets students majoring in English Education experience ELT content development processes. It allows students to gain experience with the ‘design thinking’ mindset during one semester and experience what would it be like to become a planner of English development business. Although plenty of information on the concept of design thinking can be found in books and on the internet, there are almost no resources showing cases of applying this concept in education and learning material development.

It is difficult to figure out how to apply design thinking to English education and one’s life just by reading a book. So, just like those working at a company study first when encountering a new subject and apply what they have learned to their work right afterwards, the same goes for this class. It is run based on PBL (Project-based Learning).

The objective of the course is to let students experience one half of the ELT content development process – research, planning, and prototyping. In my opinion, the best learning method is through trial and error by solving problems that arise from studying to address results and identify problems. I teach and suggest theories and development case studies that can be applied in each step while offering a framework of design thinking related to education development.

The biggest difference between schools and companies depends on whether one can create high-quality products or not. In this class, students will learn how to draw out ideas with a high degree of freedom (divergent & convergent), refine them and make them into a feasible project plan. Through this fusion process, they can gain experience with individual projects and group projects at the same time. Design thinking is a people-centered problem-solving-methodology. It is worth trying to combine it with an agile development process that develops small pieces at a time with high speed. I think it is beneficial to experience such a development method – working with a group of people as a team to address the final, combined results.

Q3. Who would you say is the target of the course ‘Design Thinking and ELT Content’? Which students with which career paths in mind should take this course?

Students who want to create interactive media or mobile apps for learning or those who are interested in planning learning content or tools could enjoy this course. This course doesn’t involve coding, but since it is about producing digital outputs, students should be willing to implement digital tools in their creation.

This course takes place in the last semester of the graduate studies, and it is a kind of development capstone that combines and completes all the knowledge students have learned from the beginning. Although we cannot make a final working product, as we are not developers, students can make their portfolios based on their plans and use this creation time as an opportunity to be in the shoes of real planners working in the field of edu-tech developing companies or start-ups. This will benefit students once they work for a project in the field as English major students, as they will have had experience not just learning theoretical parts of technology but also participating in a development project will allow them to become capable of working both as content experts and planners. This will reduce the trial and error needed and address the output of development more efficiently. Therefore, if you are concerned about which career path to follow other than teaching and if you are interested in development or research incorporating both English education and technology, it would be helpful to take courses related to planning coursework or screen structuring. When it comes to course registration, if you take this course after finishing pre-requisite courses, such as education curriculum development and content design, it would be even more beneficial to broaden your skill base as a planner with a background as an English major. After graduation, you can apply for online learning development and operation positions at a human resources development institute or a company that specializes in English education. Also, you can develop the ideas you have come up with during the semester into a business or try to open up your own business through a prospective entrepreneurs support program.

Q4. As the 2nd graduate of the ELT Materials and Digital Content Development program at IGSE, you are also a senior to current students in this program. What advice would you like to give to students who want to work in the field of ELT materials development in the future?

If you are interested in working in the edu-tech business, you should regularly search ‘English content development’ on the internet. This will give you an idea of which items are being promoted in the online English education business, which areas of the business are looking for talented personnel ready to work, and what roles you can have depending on your title at work. When it comes to English learning materials development, it is necessary to have sound knowledge in related subjects as well, such as publication, if the development is targeting the offline market; the same is true for software development and video production if the development is targeting the online market. Also, you should be careful about targeting age groups, as different approaches are used for each age group – infants, k–12, post-secondary, lifetime, etc. School helps equip you with advanced expert knowledge about English education, but it is also important to gain knowledge from people in the field by participating in MOOCs abroad, academic conferences and meetings, on & off-mixed online groups, etc. with a mindset of organizing your own education curriculum. Then, you will learn which areas you want to focus on and work in. If you plan to establish a start-up, I recommend you apply to a start-up education institute after graduation to learn more about working-level knowledge. The literacy training you gain through English education will be a huge merit for exploring the world and understanding other areas of expertise. The ability to understand and express yourself needs to be consistently trained and reinforced over your lifetime. So, make the best out of your opportunity at IGSE while taking all classes in English. Yes, focusing on English itself is the most important part, after all!