The Effectiveness of Snake and Ladder Game in Teaching Vocabulary to Students with Different Motivation Level

By Nashihah Mahanani

Introducing English to children have become a trend in Indonesia since several years ago. Many elementary schools even kindergarten schools  include English as a subject that must be learn by the students. This policy is made to facilitate the students to learn English since they are young. The main goal of teaching English to elementary students is to make them mastery simple English vocabulary and to prepare them for learning English material in higher level.

 In learning English, vocabulary plays the important rules for the success fulness of English learning. Vocabulary links the four skills in language learning; listening, speaking, reading, and witing. To be success in learning english and be able to communicate using English effectively, students ought to mastery English vocabulary as well as possible. Unfortunately, vocabulary often plays as the second role in English teaching and learning. Vocabulary is often taught as a part of the four English skills. As a consequence, the students cannot mastery English well.

In elementary school, teacher usually focuses on teaching the students about vocabulary. In contrast, teaching English to elementaru students who are categorized as young learners is not an easy task since they have special characteristics. Harmer (2001, p. 38) states some general characteristic of children. There are: (a) they respond to meaning even if they do not understand the words, (b) They often learn indirectly than directly, (c) their understanding comes not just from the explanation, but also from what they see hear and crucially have a chance to touch and interact with, (d) They generally display an enthusiasm for learning and curiosity about the world around them, (e) They have a need for individual attention and approval from their teacher, (f) They are taken on talking about themselves and responding well to learning that use themselves and their own lives as main topic in the classroom, (g) They have limited attention span, unless activities are extremely engaging can make   them   easily   getting   bored, losing interaction after 10 minutes or so.

Since elementary students have special characteristic, teacher have to have many different and creative ways to teach them, they can use songs, games, or attractive media to gain the students’ attention. So that the purposes of teaching English to them can be reached. Scott and Ytreberg (1980, p. 2) suggest that in teaching vocabulary to young learners, teacher should avoid on rely on the spoken word only, teacher should do many activities that including movement and involve the senses, besides, teacher also should play the language so the students will interested on the lesson.

As have been stated in the previous discussion, teacher can use many ways to gain students’ enthusiasm, one of them is by using game. According to Rixon (1991, Quoted in Yolageldili and Rikan, 2011, p. 219) game is form of play governed by rules. Deesri (2002) describes games as an activity with rules, a goal and an element of fun. Moreover, Talak (2010, p. 11) said that games are fun activities that promote interaction, thinking, learning, and problem solving strategy. To sum up, game is a set of activity that has a rule.

Using games to teach vocabulary to elementary school can be more effective than others methods, many experts of language teaching methodology also agree that playing game is good way to teach English vocabulary to young learners. Lee (1995, p. 23 as cited in Huyen and Nga 2003, p. 5) lists several main advantages when games are used in the classroom, including “a welcome break from usual routine of the language class”, motivating and challenging”, “effort of learning” and “language practice in the various skills”

Playing game is one of children’s habits, that are why, applying it on learning English is suitable since it can make the students interesting on the lesson. Game can be used in any part of the lesson. It can be in the beginning as a brainstorming activity, in the middle part of the lesson or in the end of the lesson to evaluate the result of learning process. There are many kinds of game, Ioannou (2010, p. 2) suggest three kinds of game that mostly used in teaching English, those games are flash card games, ball games, and action games. Moreover, Lee (2000, p. 65 as cited in Tuan 2012, p. 3) classified games into ten kinds: structure games, vocabulary games, spelling games, pronunciation games, number games, listen and do games, read and do games, games and writing, miming and role play games, and discussion games. Since there are many kinds of game, teachers have to choose appropriate game when they teach vocabulary to their students. By using appropriate game in teaching the students, students will get many advantages, such as new innovation in learning activity, fun, and increasing in communication competence, besides, appropriate game that is use by the teachers can also increase students’ motivation in learning English.

Motivation is one element that influences someone to do something successfully. Someone with high motivation usually get more than someone with low motivation. According to Harmer (2002, p. 98) motivation is some kind of internal drive which pushes someone to do things in order to achieve something. William and Burden (1997, p. 120) suggest that motivation is a ‘state of cognitive arousal’ which provokes a ‘decision to act’, as result of which there is ‘sustained intellectual and/ or physical effort’ so that the person can achieve some ‘previously goal’. In addition, Guay, et al (2010, p. 712) stated that motivation is the reason underlying behavior. Moreover, Lai (2011, p. 2) clearly stated that motivation is reasons that underlie behavior that is characterized by willingness and volition. In short, motivation is a condition that pushes someone to do best to get something they want.

As have been stated above that there are many games that can be used to teach English, one of them is Snake and Ladder game. Therefore, this study tries to examine the effectiveness of snake and ladder game in teaching vocabulary to elementary students, yet, to be more significant, the researcher will examine the use of snake and ladder game to teach english to students with different level of motivation. To be clearer, the researcher formulates three questions; they are: (1) Is the a difference in the students vocabulary mastery taught by using snake and ladder game and conventional methods?, (2) Is there a difference of students vocabulary mastery with different level of motivation, and (3) Is there an interaction between snake and ladder game and students with different motivation?