teacher-as-designer
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- PaperTESOL Journal17 Jun 2026
Toward Teachers as Designers
Shannon Daniel, Amber Warren
The paper argues that language teachers should be seen as designers who intentionally shape learning conditions, environments, and experiences, rather than as technicians focused solely on instructional delivery. This framing highlights teachers' judgment, responsibility, and relational work, which is especially relevant as learning extends beyond traditional classrooms.
Original abstract
We argue for centering teachers as designers rather than technicians or planners of learning outcomes, proposing design as a way of naming the work of discernment through which teachers intentionally shape conditions, environments, and experiences in response to learners, purposes, and situations. Framing language teachers as designers is especially important in the present moment, as learning increasingly unfolds across diverse temporal, spatial, and relational arrangements that extend beyond bounded classroom spaces. We contrast these framings to show how teaching understood as instructional delivery or as design directs attention toward different aspects of teachers' judgment, responsibility, and relational work.