This project could empower ESL teachers to be 'designers of technology use' and potentially spark easily scalable and sustainable technology-related innovations in language classrooms.

Digital technology has been leveraged for language learning purposes, such as digital game-based learning, mobile language learning and virtual reality (Li & Lan, 2021). However, while there is extensive research on emerging technologies, their application in formal language classrooms is relatively limited. For effective technology-integrated instruction, teachers are required to creatively reconfigure the use of technologies to suit their contexts and instructional goals. It is closely related to teachers’ creativity and creative self-efficacy. However, while research has emphasised teachers’ technological, pedagogical and content knowledge for effective technology integration, less attention has been given to fostering language teachers’ creativity in using technology. To fill this gap, this project aims to harness design thinking approach to build teachers’ creative design capacity. Design thinking, defined as “an analytic and creative process that engages a person in opportunities to experiment, create and prototype models, gather feedback, and redesign” (Razzouk & Shute, 2012, p. 330), is gaining increasing attention in educational settings around the globe. This project aims to develop and evaluate the impact of a design thinking programme on improving teachers’ creativity and creative self-efficacy as well as students’ language learning performance. A multiple case study approach will be adopted to capture the interactions among the design thinking programme, teacher change and possible contextual and personal factors (e.g., technological, pedagogical and administrative). Six primary school teachers who teach English as a second language (ESL), three curriculum designers and two Grade-3 classes taught by each teacher will be recruited from three academically high, medium and low schools in Hong Kong. Participating teachers and the curriculum designer in each school will be involved in co-design meetings for iterations of design. Each iteration includes empathy, defining problems, ideation, prototyping, testing and reflection. Teachers will implement their technology use in one class (experimental class) and continue their usual way of teaching in the other class (control class). Data will be collected from multiple sources, including process data (observation notes of co-design meetings and classroom implementation of technologies), product data (artefacts), perception data (teacher surveys and interviews) and student language learning performance. Drawing on these various sources of data, implications will be generated for building creative design capacity among teachers. This project could empower ESL teachers to be 'designers of technology use' and potentially spark easily scalable and sustainable technology-related innovations in language classrooms.