The team developed a solution to improve educational experiences for new immigrants called ESOLympics. It involves hosting game nights at bars for immigrants to practice English in a low-pressure social environment. Through research, prototyping, and feedback, the team refined their idea. Their action plan outlines staffing needs, building partnerships, and developing a funding strategy to implement ESOLympics in the real world.

1. American Dream
Come True
Team Pre-Brunch
Tam Le, Jamie Lin, Whitney Mapes, Stan Grinapol
New York, USA
April 2015

2. How might we improve
educational experiences
for new immigrants?

3. Our Process
This is a huge challenge to tackle so we broke the design process into 3 phases:
1. Inspiration
Planned and conducted research
Synthesized research to create insight statements
Formed “How Might We” questions
2. Ideation
Brainstormed solutions
Created storyboards and prototypes
Tested prototypes to receive feedback
3. Implementation
Created an action plan and pitch

4. Inspiration
Phase

5. “I didn’t really speak English and
was self-conscious of speaking it...
I would just not talk.”

6. Who we interviewed
The great part about human-centered design is that
we get to know the humans we’re designing
solutions for. We broke the people we interviewed
into the following 3 categories:
1. People who have immigrated to America
Cu and Trang Le from Vietnam
Andrei Coso from Mexico
Mrs. Grinapol from Russia
2. Experts working with education for immigrants
Phyllis Berman, Director of the Riverside Language Program
3. People who have had analogous experiences
Melinda Kilner from America, lived in Italy for 3 years

7. We kept hearing...
“I liked to hang out with
mish-mash people.
Those who also
didn’t fully belong.”
“I would not
leave the house
because I didn’t
want to embarrass
myself.”

8. Our
Insights

9. Immigrants relate to and surround themselves
with others who are “outsiders” like
themselves, such as other immigrants who aren’t
necessarily from the same cultural background.

10. Immigrants will withdraw themselves
from social opportunities or avoid
speaking English out of self-consciousness or fear
of making mistakes.

11. Our question
From those insights, we generated several “How Might We” questions to turn
our existing challenges into opportunities for design.
From there, we chose a single question to serve as the jumping off point for the
upcoming Ideation phase:
How might we reduce or eliminate the feeling of
self-consciousness and fear that holds immigrants
back from attempts at social integration?

12. Ideation
Phase

13. What we brainstormed
From there we brainstormed several ideas and
converged on a game night specifically for
immigrants learning English.
The event would be held at a place that serves
drinks, like a bar, to make it squarely an adult
event as well as to make people less self-
conscious.
We hope that additionally, after playing these
team games, individuals would also build
friendships outside of their classes that would
encourage them to form a larger, local network.

14. Our storyboard
Hom is a mother of two
teenage boys. They came over
to America 6 months ago. She
is learning English to pick up
her old job as an accountant.
Her ESOL teacher tells the
class about an evening
program called ESOLympics
that meets every other week to
socially drink and play.
Now that our team’s
selected an idea to
prototype, we wanted
to break the concept
into pieces that can be
easily tested.
We’ve done this through
a storyboard that
visualizes a hypothetical
end-to-end experience
that a person may have
with our idea.

15. Our storyboard
Hom arrives and is assigned to
a partner. She then spots her
friend Wendy by the bar. Hom
buys herself a drink and starts
chatting with Wendy.
The announcer calls for
partners to gather by their
assigned game areas. Tonight
they are playing Pictionary.
Hom meets her partner Boris.
The event is held at a bar in a
central location for students.
Hom arrives by herself. Her
husband is looking after the
kids for her night off.

16. Our storyboard
An hour later, the games come
to a close and the winners are
announced. Hom and Boris win
2nd place!
Hom and Boris make plans to
attend the next game night,
and until then, they make plans
to grab a burger next week.
Hom and Boris make a
spectacular team. Turns out
Boris is a fantastic artist and
they regularly beat their
opponents.

17. Prototyping
An important step in the design thinking process is prototyping—from low-
fidelity to high-fidelity, prototypes allow us to quickly and cheaply test aspects
of our idea and iterate and build upon them.
For our idea, we felt like role playing in an
analogous situation would yield the most insights.

18. How we prototyped
We went to West 3rd Commons, a local bar in
Greenwich Village stocked with board games.
There we attempted to teach each other
the following:
Cards Against Humanity— American, culture
and humor-based game
Durak— Russian, strategy-based card game

19. “This was difficult even though
all of us spoke English.”

20. What we learned from prototyping
The loud music hampered communication. → We need to control the music
on premise. This could mean choosing a quiet bar or having enough clout
to affect music volume.
Instructions are difficult to give all at once. → We need to provide the basic
necessary instructions to a game at the beginning to everyone, and from
there have volunteers in each group disseminate further instructions as
necessary.
Humor games, such as Cards Against Humanity, are extremely difficult to
grasp in a foreign language, and strategic games, such as Durak, contain
an additional layer of complexity beyond language. → We should have
games that scale in level of difficulty. For example, ESOL participants
could start with simpler games like Pictionary and progress to
Catchphrase, Scrabble, and finally Cards Against Humanity.

21. “This sounds interesting! I do like the idea
of games... I am only hesitant
about the location.”

22. Feedback
We then shared our ideas with a couple of experts—Phyllis Berman, Director of
the Riverside Language Program and Tiffany Hsiau, ESOL teacher—and
received the following feedback and builds:
Similar events have been conducted and were met with success.
Volunteers from colleges are helpful for running these events.
Adapting games for English levels is a great idea.
Another build could be having the more advanced students teach others
about the games from their own culture.
Drinking may not be culturally appropriate for everyone.
Some students are on a strict budget or have children at home which could
prevent them from attending an event held at a bar; a coffee shop may be
more inviting to a larger population.

23. Despite the feedback, we feel holding the event at
a bar is imperative in creating a low-pressure
atmosphere of fun that will allow students to let
their guard down and lose self-consciousness.

24. Implementation
Phase

25. Our action plan
Devising an innovative solution and putting it into practice are two different
propositions. Our action plan for implementation helps us understand what is
required to get ESOLympics out in the world and where we’ll have to seek help.
We have broken this down into 3 phases:
1. Staffing our project
with the people needed to make this happen
2. Building partnerships
with the partners needed to support the idea
3. Developing a funding strategy
for the money needed to get this out in the real world and to eventually scale

26. Staffing our project
Once it is up and running, ESOLympics will require a few hours each week of
the following staff’s time.
Program Coordinator— acts as a point of contact for bars and participants.
Handles advertising and awareness (e.g. printing flyers, maintaining a
social media presence, etc.)
Host/Emcee— announces the evening’s events and gets everything moving
Volunteers— understands the the games and is able to work on a more
individual basis with the teams to explain rules. The volunteers could
potentially be graduates of ESOL programs/former ESOLympics
participants or ESOL teachers.

27. Building partnerships
For our idea, partnerships are essential for recruiting the recent immigrants that
will benefit from ESOLympics.
ESOL programs— these programs and their teachers are key in raising
awareness and recruiting recent immigrants to attend ESOLympics
Local bars and/or event spaces— working with them and building a good
relationship will be critical to the success of our idea
Other programs for recent immigrants— these can also serve as an
important recruitment source

28. Developing a funding strategy
Although our idea doesn’t require much start-up or maintenance capital, some
funding will still be required to get ESOLympics into the real world.
Initial grant— to get our idea off the ground or anytime we need to enter a
new city/market
% of bar tab profits— we could strike a deal with the bars to give us a certain
% of the profits once we hit a $ minimum
Multiple game night passes— after an initial free event, we could sell passes
for 5 or 10 game nights
Sell board games or raffles— these small incremental sales could add up

29. Pitching
In order to get staff members, partners,
and financial backers on board, we will
need to pitch them our idea either face-to-
face or via phone and email.

30. Our pitch
New immigrants hesitate to learn English and engage in American culture
because they feel embarrassed, self-conscious, and constantly fear making
mistakes. So much so, that they sometimes choose not to speak English at all.
By taking these individuals out of the classroom and into a relaxed social
environment, they’ll lower their guard and allow themselves to have fun. Our
program—ESOLympics—combines board games and a low-pressure bar setting
to create a social environment where new immigrants can practice English,
socialize with others going through the same experience, and generally have a
good time.
Liquid courage optional.

31. Moving
forward...

32. What we learnt
Over the past 11 weeks, after going through the Inspiration, Ideation, and
Implementation phases, we have a clear understanding of the process and a
more solid footing in the overall experience.
Thanks to the Design Kit Course for Human-
Centered Design, IDEO.org, and +Acumen, we are
all now stronger design thinkers .

33. Thank you from Team Pre-Brunch!