Teacher-Generated Materials: Exploring the Reasons Why Teachers Create Their Own Teaching Materials

Abstract

Despite the widespread availability of commercially produced supplementary materials, many teachers choose to supplement textbooks with their own materials. These teacher-generated materials currently represent an under-researched area within the larger field of materials development. This study aims to fill a gap in the literature with regards to the motivations of teachers of English in the Japanese junior high school context to create and use teacher-generated materials. A review of the literature relevant to materials development and teacher-generated materials is presented, followed by an examination of the methods used for data gathering and analysis. Employing an approach based upon the grounded theory methodology, this study reveals four primary motivations for the choice of teachers to develop teacher-generated materials as a supplement to mandated textbooks. The data analysis and discussion reveals four primary reasons for teachers in this context to create their own materials. These motivations represent both an empirical confirmation of previous theoretical proposals and new findings and contribute towards establishing teacher-generated materials as a distinct area of materials research with significant potential.

Keywords: teacher-generated materials, grounded theory, teacher training, teacher beliefs, Japan, EFL