The Effectiveness of Pretend Play Method Based on Local Wisdom towards Social Skills of Children

Abstract

Pretend play based on local wisdom is a method that is very fascinating for children. The purpose of this method is to stimulate the development of children’s social skills. These skills are very essential to be stimulated in their life in order to socialize with people around them. However, the application of this method was still very rare in some kindergartens as most to of the teachers there still used conventional methods in children’s learning. Consequently, new methods of teaching were less to be applied in those kindergartens because the teachers concerned more with academic aspects rather than the children’s development. This article presents one teaching method namely pretend play method based on local wisdom to stimulate the children's social skills. The design used in this research was quasi experimental research by using pretest-posttest of non-equivalent control group design. Data were collected through observations and documentations. The data were compared by using t-test in the experimental group and as well as in the control groups. The results revealed that pretend play method based on local wisdom was effective to be applied as the children’s learning method to stimulate their social skills.