Innovation in Language Learning

This study presents a collaborative interdisciplinary project between the National University of Education (UNAE), Yachay Tech University, and the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, Ibarra campus (PUCESI), combining graphic design and foreign language pedagogy to produce a four-volume English reading resource for Ecuadorian schoolchildren, particularly those attending underprivileged and rural schools. The material, “Orion and Isabela’s Adventures,” published by Editorial UNAE between 2022 and 2023, follows two fictional characters across three original stories set in each of Ecuador’s four natural regions: the Galápagos Islands, the Coast, the Highlands, and the Amazon. Graphic Design students developed the illustrations through a structured process of documentary research, character and setting sketching, expert review, digitization, and editorial integration with text, while Foreign Language Pedagogy faculty designed accompanying pre-reading, during-reading, and post-reading activities that reinforce English grammar, vocabulary, and Ecuadorian geographic and cultural knowledge. The stories address themes relevant to children’s daily lives, including school, family, and friendship, and align with the communication and cultural-awareness, oral communication, reading, and language strands of Ecuador’s Ministry of Education curriculum, specifically the fourth year of basic education as a complement to the fifth module of the MINEDUC syllabus. The project also embodies Sustainable Development Goal 4 on quality education by extending accessible, culturally grounded English-language material to communities with limited access to specialized resources, illustrated here through a field implementation on Isabela Island, Galápagos, where the material was used directly with primary school children. Findings from this implementation and from the broader four-region rollout suggest that the multidisciplinary, discipline-bridging approach strengthens English language acquisition while deepening learners’ understanding of their own country’s ecological and cultural diversity, and that it simultaneously benefits the university students involved by offering applied, cross-disciplinary, community-impact experience that connects design and pedagogy training to real classroom needs. This paper discusses the design methodology, pedagogical framework, and community outreach process behind the material, reflects on outcomes observed during the Isabela Island implementation, and considers implications for future discipline-bridging approaches to EFL resource development, teacher training, and university social responsibility initiatives across similarly under-resourced contexts in Latin America.

Keywords: Editorial design, graphic material, English language teaching, EFL material development, illustrated books