The Development of a Trilingual Dictionary for Elementary Students

Abstract

Elementary schools in Bali introduce a minimum of three languages, including Balinese as a local language, Indonesian as the national language, and English as a foreign language to students. However, the presence of a dictionary that is focused in assisting students in mastering the three languages is very limited. Thus, this study was aimed at; 1) analyzing the scope of vocabularies that must be learned by elementary school students, 2) developing a trilingual Balinese-Indonesian-English dictionary for elementary school students. Applying research and development design, the data were collected through observation, interviews and document studies. The results revealed that there were 18 major themes of vocabularies that should be learned in Balinese, Indonesian, and English. Contextual selection of themes and vocabulary accompanied by illustrations provides a better understanding in acquiring the new vocabularies. Besides, the efforts to preserve local culture and maintain self-identity in globalization era can also be achieved.