Abstract: The era of the digital transformation calls for teachers who possess digital competences, regardless which subject they teach. This paper provides a short overview of a design thinking process conducted to develop and evaluate measures to improve the digital competences of prospective English as a Foreign Language teachers. More specifically, interventions set in the scope of teacher education were developed based on a theoretical foundation provided by a literature review on both digital competences and English language teaching as well as overlaps between the two. With this theoretical background as a starting point, a qualitative content analysis of the relevant course descriptions was conducted to determine the extent to which the competences were covered by the program under review. Furthermore, interviews were conducted with educators and a questionnaire was sent out to students to determine the current state at the faculty and to gather evaluations of the relevance of competences for the target group. After an analysis of all data, prototypes for measures were developed and evaluated in a peer-review with advanced students and an expert review with educators. This contribution aims to be of interest to educators, curriculum designers and researchers who aim to constructively support and frame the digital transformation through thoughtfully promoting digital competences. Moreover, the paper illustrates the applicability of design thinking to the development of innovative courses and curricula.

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