Learn Japanese on-line with Urban Japanese

Date: 2006 November 28 16:53

Posted by Joe

We've been sent a press release from Japanese video game and toy concept development company Gamewax, who have developed a interesting concept in learning Japanese remotely. They claim to be the UK's first fully interactive recordable on-line Japanese language school, Urban Japanese. Distance learning is nothing new, as universities and other education institutions have been tinkering with the concepts for years now, but this is certainly the first private company in the UK we're aware of that offer Japanese lessons.

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Press release as follows:

URBAN JAPANESE ON-LINE LANGUAGE SCHOOL LAUNCHED BY GAMEWAX
Tuesday, 28th November 2006. London

Gamewax Limited is pleased to announce the launch of Urban Japanese, the UK's first Fully Interactive, Recordable On-line Japanese language school. Conceived by game developers, the school features many unique elements such as educational games, video conferencing classrooms and optional Anime related content.

The unique concept takes advantage of the ever increasing broadband speeds available by replacing the traditional classroom with a cutting edge, multi-client video conferencing system featuring Global-IP Audio. Students are able to login to their desired class with a moments notice and take part in a fully interactive audio-visual Japanese lesson. Many Universities around the world are already adopting video conferencing as a recognised delivery medium for distance learning, enabling thousands of students to gain access to content previously not available to them.

Urban Japanese takes this one step further, by encouraging students to interact with other students in a student "practice" classroom that is available 24 hours a day. However, the most striking feature of the service is the ability for ALL students to RECORD their lessons, and re-play them at their convenience. This advanced feature enables every student of the service to have a perfect duplicate of every single lesson they participate in.

The emphasis is on convenience, enabling the student to learn from home and be more flexible with the time they choose to learn - whilst having the capability to playback any part of any lesson when revising.

The system has so far been previewed at various UK events such as The MCM London Expo and IMAF (International Manga and Anime Festival) 2006 ans has been met with great excitement. To access the service, students are asked to make an application for a free trial lesson by telephoning the school office based in Chiswick, London. The trial lesson takes approximately 30 minuets to complete and enables the students to familiarize themselves with the interface whilst the teachers assess the individuals Japanese level.

About GAMEWAX
Based in the office Headquarters in Chiswick, London, Gamewax is a Japanese video game and toy concept development company. The core business to date has been the development of arcade video games. The team of designers and programmers have accumulated over 50 years experience between them and have produced numerous hit titles. The studio is authorized developers of Microsoft XBox, XBox 360, Windows Embedded and Nintendo DS platforms.