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James York profile

James plays with many things. Games, taiko, techno, code, and pedagogy.

Personal social mediaLudic Language PedagogyKotoba Miners
(Japanese teaching project)
🐤 Twitter
📺 YouTube
📹 Twitch		🌐 Journal website
💬 Discord		💬 Discord
💁 Patreon

🧑‍🏫 Work and research

My research at Meiji University is centred on the application of games and play in language and literacy teaching contexts.

Currently teaching

Games and education seminar

I teach 3rd and 4th years all about games AND education, and then we make educational games which they use to conduct research for their graduation theses. That’s the aim of the York Game Lab — to create and publish student (and my) games.

Learn more about the lab here: https://www.instagram.com/york_meiji

Advanced Communicative English: Academic Writing 

Students are expected to write a term paper as well as follow the material in the course textbook. All communication is expected to be in English.

Student papers are limited to eight-page zines (example).

Advanced Communicative English: Content-based study 

This course is designed to improve students’ English communication skills. The focus of the class is the global phenomenon of gaming, eSports, and the language used in gaming communities. The course syllabus is available here.

教養演習: Doing things with games and play 

This class introduces students to the world of game design on both large (campus-wide games) and small (board and card games) of games and their design. Students partake in a “Game Day” where other students playtest their prototypes.

Ludic Language Pedagogy

As part of my research and teaching, I started an open-access, open peer-reviewed journal with Jonathan deHaan. The journal is a place for teachers and researchers to publish their work on the use of games and play (Ludic) to teach language and literacy skills (Language) with a strong focus on what the teacher did (Pedagogy).

You can find out more about the journal here.

🤔 What is ludic?

I’m currently writing a paper on this word. You can see my thoughts here:

Me, talking about the term “ludic” at the LLPx02 event.

🇯🇵 Teaching Japanese

Kotoba Miners is a Japanese language school that I created in Minecraft. However, we do not just use Minecraft. Recently, we have been playing other games such as Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes and reading manga together like Yotsuba&! and others. The best way to join us is the Kotoba Miners Discord server here.

Some more info about Kotoba Miners:

  • I stream lessons on Twitch (sometimes).
  • If you’d like a private Japanese lesson with me, consider becoming a Patreon.
  • You can find an archive of recordings on my YouTube channel.

Any questions?

Get in touch!

✉️ email