Abstract
There is a need for teachers to have the ability to develop their own materials to cater to their own pupils’ proficiency level, background knowledge, needs and interests (Janelle, 2019) in order to supplement existing textbooks. Therefore, the process of acquiring the ability to develop their own materials should start when they are still student teachers at their teacher training institutions (Abdul, Narayanasamy, Mohamad, & Abd, 2019; Janelle, 2019). This research aims to investigate 30 TESL student teachers’ experiences in developing and implementing their designed reading materials in an ESL classroom. The objective of this activity is to help them understand the principles of material development for teaching reading in an ESL context. The researchers carried out qualitative research adopting a case study method. The research instruments used were researchers’ field notes (RFN), student teachers’ personal reflective journal (PRJ) and individual interview (II). The findings indicate that TESL student teachers learnt to develop reading materials more effectively by analysing their targeted pupils’ proficiency level, age, needs and interests. This experience enables them to gain valuable experiences on how to be producers of reading materials rather than mere consumers of existing reading materials. The findings could provide better insights to TESL educators in designing their own reading materials for their own students.