Using Soleh English (SE) Teaching Materials with The Integration of Cultural and Islamic Values: Islamic Preschool Teachers’ Voices
English Language Teaching (ELT) materials are significant as tools in facilitating a second language teaching and learning including for preschool level. Also, it is necessary for teachers to opt for appropriate ELT materials which encompass cultural and local identity to generate a meaningful and relatable context of teaching and learning. Nonetheless, most of the materials currently available for preschool education in the publishing market are foreign and therefore little focus on local context. It is more evident in Islamic preschools, as the ELT materials need to be infused with Islamic values to align with the philosophy of Islamic preschools. Hence, this paper presents and discusses a part of a study on Islamic preschool teachers’ perception of the Soleh English (SE) teaching materials developed in the attempt to integrate Malay culture and Islamic values with ELT. The study employed a Case Study design involving five female Islamic preschool teachers in the Klang Valley Region. They were purposely chosen based on their experiences using the SE teaching materials. The data was obtained through semi-structured interviews and triangulated with a questionnaire and document analysis. The interview data reported in this article were thematically analysed. Findings illuminated four key themes for each research question which indicated that there is an integration of cultural and Islamic values in the SE teaching materials as well as in ESL teaching. This enabled the teachers to instil Islamic and cultural values in their English language teaching in contribution to generate noble citizens. Keywords: materials, ESL teaching, integrated values, islamic preschool, cultural.