Revitalizing A Traditional Game “ Dakon ” to Teach English for Young Learners

A traditional game can develop either cognitive, social or emotional skills of the children. Dakon, one of the name of traditional game from Java, becomes the point of discussion in this paper. Dakon is made of wood or plastic with fourteen pits filled with particles like tamarine seeds, snail cover or small stones. This game can be played by two players facing each other by filling the particles to each pit. In the last stopped stone, the student should see the letter printed in the pit and then start spelling the letter, pronounce the word and read the usage of the word in a simple sentence provided. This part is played again and again until the particles are empty. This paper aims at designing a traditional game, dakon, to learn pronunciation and vocabulary. This game is designed for young learners (elementary school students) who willingly learn English in pairs. Besides learning English, this game also can develop the learners’ social interaction with friends at similar ages. This is a Design Based Research by designing art concept. The result shows that the Elementary school students enjoy learning English using this game.


Introduction
Basic knowledge and skills of characters need to be given at the early age.This is in accordance to the Presidential Rule No. 87 in 2017 regarding strengthening character building.One of the ways of strengthening the character building is by giving both soft skills and hard skills suitable with the young p-ISSN: 2580-2712 e-ISSN: 2580-2720 Journal of English Language, Literature, and Teaching 59 learners' characters and personality for their future life.Learning by doing, learning by playing is one of the young learners' characters that stimulate them to play and learn.Kinds of game which are offered recently is the use of technology for learning such as the use of smartphones, and other electronic tools that equip children to use gadgets for learning.Some research findings show that the use of technology for learning is strongly suggested Krashen (1981Krashen ( , 1982)), Campos, Oliveira, and Albini (2013).
However, when the use of electronic tools is not followed by either parents or teachers' guidance there would be no control and monitor from the adults.As a result, children will prefer to learn by themselves individually and reduce interaction with peers.This might cause individualism, less team work and less social interaction among the young learners.Besides, the traditional games will be extinct from the kids' world.Among the worries of the extinction of traditional games, Balambal (2017) stated that Traditional rural games heighten the agility of the mind and of the body.
Traditional games that are frequently found all around the rural areas are getting extinct.In Indonesia, these kinds of traditional games could support teamwork as a primary activity in working together and cooperative principles.
Unfortunately, these kinds of games are mostly replaced by modern games such as video games, and other modern and digital games that can be played individually without social interactions.According to Sukirman (2008:19), traditional games could develop either cognitive, emotional or social characters of the young learners.Further he stated that traditional games such as dakon, bentengan, hide and seek are types of games that could not only entertain but also keep the social relationship and social convenience among the players.Furthermore, Arif (2017) emphasizes that playing for young learners have important characteristics and values to develop good personalities among the young learners.
One of the most important traditional games for young learners is dakon.
Dakon is one of the traditional games played by two players facing each other using a special dakon board made of wood with fourteen pits in two rows filled with particles from tamarine seeds, small snail cover or small stones.The point of interest of this game is the process of filling the particles in each pit.From the description of dakon the previous explanation, this paper is intended to collaborate the traditional game, dakon, with the teaching media to learn English letters, its pronunciation and simple reading activities for young learners.
It is expected that this teaching media can be one of the alternatives to learn English that can be used simultaneously to create a media that stimulate social interaction with the peers.Thus, the purpose of this paper is to design a dakon as a teaching media to learn English.

Basic Competences
This teaching media is designed to achieve the basic competence of pronunciation, vocabularies and simple sentences.2.
Products ELT Teaching Media consists of dakon board and flash cards.The dakon board is made of plastic painted with acryllic and the particles made of plastic.Flash card is made of art paper 120 gram using digital media printing.

Packaging
The final product of this ELT media is in the form od dakon and flash cards.4.

Contents of the Media
A.
Front Part The front part consists of cover page consisting of title of the ELT Media, name of the author, and illustration related to the ELT media for young learners.

B. Content Part
This part is the contents of ELT media consisting of 26 flash cards.The flash cards consist of five pictures with the name in English and its meaning.This ELT media is completed with the example of a simple sentence usage.The cartoon illustration printed in the cards is used to illustrate and attract the learners' attention.

Physical Appearance
The physical appearance of this teaching media includes: (1) using big font 18, (2) spatial, the lay out is made wider for easy reading., (3) the illustration and picture in the flash cards are in the form of cartoon, and (4) the design is colorful 6.
Presentation The way to present the flash cards are: (1) communicative interaction (giving stimulus and responses).Dakon is played in pairs, as a stimulus when the final seed is in the pit, the player should mention the letter inside the pit, take the flashcard related to the letter, call out the letter, the picture and the simple sentence with a correct pronunciation, and (2) the complete information is in the use of simple sentences which are commonly found in daily life.

Language
The language used should consider four aspects namely: (1) readable, all of the simple sentences written in the flash cards are presented with illustration, (2) informative, the simple sentence only has one meaning and not ambiguous, (3) it is written in a good English, and (4) precise English for ease.

Methods
The design of this study is design based research.According to Sandoval and Bell (2004)

Finding and discussion
The use of dakon as the teaching media has three primary functions (1) to increase motivation, (2) to prevent boredom in learning English, and (3) to strengthen the learners' understanding on real life situation.Types of teaching media are divided into five namely: (1) visual, (2) audio, (3) audio-visual, (4) tactile, and ( 5) virtual.This teaching media is using two media, visual and tactile.The concept of this teaching media is using visual media for teaching English to Young Learners.It is presented in the form of dakon board and flash card.
Flash card has cartoons as illustration of some vocabularies and simple sentences to read.The pictures in the flash card have function to ease the students in understanding materials delivered by the EFL teachers.Inside each pit there would be letters represented the twenty six letters in English.
Figure 4. Dakon Board The design of dakon is made using illustration in the form of pictures with colorful pictures and letters to attract the learners' attention.The flash cards are designed using font 18 in order to ease the learners to read, see Appendix.

Language contents
A good language text can ease English Young Learners to understand the material given.The criteria of good English is such as the following:1) the use of good English vocabularies, 2) the use of good English simple sentences, and 3) a good English translation.The language used in the flash cards pays attention to the four aspects namely: 1) readability, for young learners, it is better to use simple sentences consisting of one subject, predicate and object followed by illustration of a related picture, 2) clarity of the information, the simple languages presented on the flash cards could minimize ambiguity, 3) accuracy, the use of correct grammar, and finally, 4) the use of effective and efficient English, concise English is easier to understand for young learners.

Try out
The product was tried out on Monday, 6 November 2017 in Sekolah Dasar Negeri 1 Landungsari.This try out was executed to see the appropriateness of the product.The product appropriateness is presented in the form of oral interview with both the teachers and students.

The result of try out
Based on the verbal data collected, most of the students were happy using this game.Most of the students enjoyed learning spelling with this game.By using this game the students could easily read the simple sentences using new spelling and vocabularies.Besides increasing pronunciation skills, this game also could increase the communicative interaction among the player.

Revision of the product
Revision of the product is mainly in the form of the letter printed in dakon board.The capital letter should be read first followed by the small letter.This problem occurred due the limited space of the dakon board itself.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.The picture of dakon with fourteen pits in two rows filled with particles

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design based research is one of the methods to produce something (such as media, books, syllabus and many others).The steps of design based The visual media are pictures, sketches, illustration, pattern, diagram, photo, film, film strip, slide, chart, graphs (pictorial, circle, block, line), drawings, commercials or economy, politics), globes, street directory, travel , routes and timetable for trains and flight, advertisement, calender, mural, table, diorama, friezes, symbols (like demonstrating, miming, dan desk presenter.

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