Lessons for my ESL/ELL Classroom

Before I became a UX designer, I was a teacher — an ESL/ESOL/ELL teacher, to be exact. For nearly a decade, I worked with students from all over the world, each one learning English while also trying to master subjects like math, science, and history. Teaching in that environment wasn’t just about delivering information. It was about designing experiences — and looking back, it was UX design in its purest form.

Every lesson I created had to be adapted or modified depending on the learner. There was no one-size-fits-all approach. Each student came with different levels of English, different academic backgrounds, different cultural perspectives, and different learning speeds. My job wasn’t just to teach — it was to understand their needs and design a pathway that would actually work for them.

Sound familiar?

Just like in UX, I was constantly asking:

What does this user (student) need to succeed?

What might confuse them?

How can I make this experience intuitive, supportive, and empowering?

I built interactive lessons that students could go through at their own pace. All in English — yet carefully crafted with the understanding that they didn't yet know English. That meant heavy use of visuals, consistent iconography, clear structure, and intuitive navigation through the material. Everything was intentional. Every detail mattered.

I wasn’t just teaching language or content. I was designing experiences.

In many ways, my classroom was a user testing lab. I watched how students responded — when they got stuck, when they lit up with understanding, when they disengaged. I learned quickly that if something wasn’t working, it wasn’t the student’s fault — it was the design. So I iterated. Again and again. Modifying lessons in a matter of seconds, changing my words to help the student's understand English and the material they were learning.

That mindset is exactly what I brought with me into UX design.

Designing for learners — especially multilingual, multicultural, diverse learners — taught me the value of empathy, clarity, and flexibility. It taught me that every user is different, and that the best designs aren’t the ones that assume understanding — they build it. They meet users where they are, and guide them, patiently and clearly, toward where they need to go.

Whether it's a student navigating a science lesson in a new language or a user navigating a product for the first time, the principle is the same: design with the user in mind.

UX isn’t just about tech. It’s about people. And in many ways, I’ve been practicing it all along — in every lesson plan, every classroom activity, every moment I paused and asked myself, How can I make this easier to understand?

Because whether in education or design, that’s what it’s really all about