Adventures in English

Student Activities

Game-based activities

Minecraft's immersive learning environment is an ideal tool for creating authentic communicative contexts, making the learners' experience of the English language memorable, engaging and motivating. Stories are important to how young learners remember their experiences of additional languages so an overarching narrative ties together the puzzles the learners will need to solve within the Minecraft game. In addition to enhancing the understanding of English, the game aspect of this learning solution also encourages skills that are important for successful learning outcomes more generally, such as curiosity, creativity, perseverance, problem-solving, and, when used as part of a class-based lesson, collaboration.

Classroom-based activities

The learner-centred classroom activities bring the world of Minecraft alive in your classroom, providing plenty of communicative language practice such as collaborative speaking activities, and are accompanied by clear lesson plans to support you. These classroom activities have been designed to make the most of the opportunity your students have to learn from you, their teacher. The role of the teacher is, and will always be, central to successful language learning. The activities have been designed in accordance with the Cambridge Approach and are rooted in the Communicative Language Teaching methodology.

Language level

Most of the language within the game is level A1 (beginner) on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). However, we have chosen to include a number of A2 (elementary) level grammatical structures, such as simple ‘if’ clauses, as well as a number of above-level items of vocabulary which are contextualised within the game, such as ‘scroll’ and certain Minecraft-specific vocabulary, such as ‘creeper’. This has been done in order to ensure the students are exposed to language which is authentic to the context.