An English teacher has found a way to use the popular sandbox video game Minecraft to teach Japanese language online.

According to Gamespot, James York, a PhD student researching language learning, developed a class called Kotoba Miners, which is set up on a dedicated Minecraft server. The world York created features several structures and buildings that are geared for different learning activities.

Students can walk down "University Road" to choose from any of the buildings to enter and begin learning to read and speak Japanese with other students.

The "Ice Palace," one of the many structures, contains a series of pressure plates that students have to navigate their way through. Taking a wrong step results in a trap that has been sprung, which kills the player.

The Minecraft server York built was initially used to teach English to Japanese students by having them interact with English speaking students. However, when the course ended the English students wanted to learn Japanese the same way their Japanese counterparts learned English.

In an interview with Tofugu, York said in 2006 he got into language learning in virtual communities and was inspired to develop the new teaching tool after he had joined a Japanese World of Warcraft guild.

"I experimented with a number of virtual worlds and games as part of my research," York said. "I rejected MMOs for lack of control over content and their often extremely specialized discourse. I also rejected a lot of social worlds 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."

In related news, Minecraft developer Mojang made its private server service, Minecraft Realms, available for Mac and Windows PC users worldwide Monday.

"Realms is the easiest way for you to host a Minecraft world online," Mojang said in a statement. "You and your friends can work on an aweseome creation, adventure into the depths or play one of our featured mini-games with just a few clicks."

According to Polygon, players can purchase a $13-a-month subscription for a private Minecraft server with groups of up to 20 players.