James York,
an English teacher and PhD student researching language learning in
virtual worlds, is teaching Japanese online by using Minecraft.
The
class, which he calls Kotoba Miners, takes place on a dedicated
Minecraft server which contains several structures built for different
learning activities.
Different buildings off of
“University Road” contain different exercises that encourage students
to read and and speak Japanese together. For example, in the “Ice
Palace,” players must communicate in order navigate a series of pressure
plates correctly. If they take a wrong step a trap will activate and
kill the player.
York told Tofugu in an interview that he became interested in learning languages in virtual communities when he joined a Japanese World of Warcraft
guild in 2006. He started the Minecraft server as a tool to teach
English to Japanese students by getting them to interact with English
speakers, but when the class ended and the Japanese students left, the
English speakers stayed and wanted to learn Japanese.
“I experimented with a number of virtual worlds and games as part of my research,” York told Tofugu.
“I rejected MMOs for lack of control over content and their often
extremely specialized discourse (e.g. ‘Prot Warrior LFG SFK pst’). I
also rejected a lot of social worlds (i.e. Second Life) for their
painful aesthetics, controls and distance between user and
content-creator. Minecraft is simple. Controls, aesthetics, and
gameplay. This means that you spend less time learning how to navigate
the game and more time learning and focusing on language.”
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