Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate how the term “teaching materials” has been defined in the English teaching reference books. The target was 22 books published between 1978 and 2011, which were carefully chosen to avoid the duplication of the authors. The result of the analysis showed that the concept of teaching materials ranged from a broad meaning to a restricted meaning. For example, it sometimes referred to raw materials from which teachers develop handouts or present orally. On the other hand, the books theoretically based on the Oral Approach had a very restricted meaning: teaching materials had to be developed by the methodology advocated
by this approach. Consequently, it seems that teaching materials might be best described as “the material carefully chosen, graded, and systematized for effective teaching.”
