Innovation in Language Learning

Minecraft has recently become very popular as a learning platform also in foreign language learning. There are many examples of how to use it to stimulate language production by students in either student-created or teacher-created worlds. We thus thought of basing an eTwinning project for language learning of our classes aged 11-12 on this game so popular among teenagers. Our project had to be strictly collaborative and use Minecraft as a virtual environment where students from classes in two European countries could work together on building something of common interest: the ideal school. Foreign language skills were thus developed in an engaging context for the students and Minecraft stimulated their willingness to use the language for communication. Students were divided into mixed nationality groups in order to oblige them to use the foreign language. Scaffolding to communication took place in the classes during curricular foreign language lessons in which the teachers focussed on the structures and functions the students needed for communication within the project. The focus had to be the use of the foreign language for real communication purposes; In order to build their ideal school the group members needed to describe their idea of a school, negotiate the common project, give instructions and share using the English language as a lingua franca. Communication channels in the project were duly differentiated to accommodate the development of both written and oral language. Asynchronous chat rooms (todaysmeet.com) allowed the students to concentrate on accuracy and written communication. Synchronous communication in the online chat on Minecraft server and during video-conferences stimulated the use of the language for quick exchanges, and oral communication. The project outcome was to create a video showing the other groups the school they had built; of course also the video was a collaborative task. Portuguese and Italian students decided to use the green-screen technique so that all the member of the group could be present in the video and show round the school they had built together!