Developing the Lift and Shift Game to Introduce Tenses at the Initial Stage to Children as Young Learners

Abstract

This research is begun by finding some information that some Primary schools’ students, especially in the remote areas have difficulty in identifying tenses, even the simple models. From the students’ scores in the pre-test, it can be known that most of them were in the very poor category. The condition showed that most of the students did not understand using the simple English tenses well. The case made the researcher interested to find or create a new technique in teaching English for young learners, especially for introducing tenses because learning tenses is one of the basic elements in learning English. Related to the information from some English teachers in her village, the researcher knew that they found some difficulties in teaching tenses to their students too. And then, the researcher observed the technique which was used by them for teaching the students. The English teachers mostly used the explanation technique and still related to the English text books only. It made some students to be sleepy on the long explanation when the teacher taught them. On the researcher’s mind, the English teachers needed a new good technique or a way to teach English for the students, especially in introducing English simple tenses, so the students could memorize the materials as well as possible.  The researcher tried to modify a game which could be used to teach the English simple tenses. Still on the researcher’s mind, games could be said as the children’s world so it would be relevant with the students who had young ages. They could memorize the patterns of the English simple tenses easily while they were playing the game. The students would not be feeling bored or forced to do something, because they did of the every step of the game happily. Finally, the research of developing a new enjoyable good teaching technique in introducing English simple tenses to children as young learners was implemented.Based on the classification of the research, this research belongs to the Research and Development Research, by specification in modifying something. In this case, the researcher would like to make up the lift and shift game to be having more use on its usage, so the children who play the game are not only paying the game by wasting much time, but also they are learning something, especially, in this case, they are hoped to memorize some English simple tenses while they are playing the game. The subjects were some students of SDN Sukodono I and SDN Sukodono III, and the samples were taken by random sampling technique. There were one hundred and eleven students taken as the samples.The lift and shift game is a game which was created or developed by the researcher by a purpose to teach English simple tenses to children. It is a computerized game which was created in flash system. After it had been created, the game was implemented. The data description related to its implementation to teach English simple tenses showed that the students got high scores although some of them get low scores. Nine students get score 77.78 and the score was as the mode. The mode was higher than the mean. It was very different with the first and the second tests before they were taught by using the game, which the modes were lower than the means. After they were taught by using the game, the mean was 75.11, and the median is 75.56, which was gotten from the line number 56 after the scores were ordered from the highest score to the lowest score. It was also different with the first and the second tests which the medians were lower than the means. The highest score in this test was 88.89 and the lowest score was 56.67. So, it could be known that the range was 32.22. The standard deviation was 6.9.

Keywords: Develop, Modify, the Lift and Shift Game, Game, English Simple Tenses, Initial Stage, Children, Young Learners