LearnEnglish Minecraft Server

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about a very interesting project to teach the English language to beginners as well as advanced learners: a Minecraft server that provides special learning puzzles and game goals.

Learning a new language is a very challenging task as learners are required to memorize vocabulary, develop an understanding for the foreign language’s gammar, practice the correct pronunciation as well as their listening comprehension skills. While the latter two skills can be easily trained by watching movies and series that are subtitled, expanding the own vocabulary and learning grammar requires a lot of hard work that mostly involves a periodic repetition of the learning content. Unfortunately, traditional learning methods are not very engaging and lack an immediate feedback.

The gamification of learning, however, can improve the language learning quality by turning the key learning aspects into game mechanics that not only provide an immediate feedback, but also give the foreign language an important meaning by using it as a means to solve puzzles or other game goals. Furthermore, by turning the language learning activities into game mechanics, they can also be implemented in engaging, flow-inducing and vivid virtual worlds. That way, students not only experience a higher enjoyment when practicing a foreign language, but also are more motivated to continue playing the game thus repeating the learning content more frequently. Lastly, computer games, due to their reward game mechanics, also encourage players to retry challenges after a failure in a highly motivated way.

Recently, I came across a very interesting approach to teach the English language to beginners as well as advanced learners by implementing the learning activites into Minecraft. The LearnEnglish Minecraft Server project, created and developed by Cacille, provides puzzles and other mini games of various complexity.

For instance, beginners can start to expand their English vocabulary just by exploring the virtual world and meeting Non-Player Characters (NPC) that perform various activities such as running or swimming. Once a player approaches one of those NPC, they inform the student about the activity they are performing: „I am running“. Other beginner puzzles challenge the players to find a way through a maze by answering questions correctly or to count various types of animals.

LearnEnglish Minecraft Server

In contrast to beginners, advanced learners are challenged with more difficult activities like a language based scavanger hunt or a minecart ride that, each time the minecart arrives at a station, requires the player to correctly complete a sentence. Based on the player’s input the minecart will take a different route which might kill the player or safely bring them to the next destination.

Aside from providing the puzzles, the LearnEnglish server can also act as a classroom where students as well as teacher meet in order to cooperatively or competitively tackle the game’s challenges. That way, teachers or parents can utilize the game as a platform to teach the English language in a very engaging way.

Currently, the learning environment is still in development, but already shows its great potential. I am really excited to follow its development and hear about the results when it is tested for the first time.