Time to Stop Talking

A year in the life on esports teacher (Part 4)

This is the fourth in a series of blog posts by lecturer, consultant, and teacher of esports, Nik Turner.

After having spent around three weeks trying to switch the mindset of the students from ‘gaming to esports’ it was time to start delivering ‘Unit 1: Introduction to Esports’ from the Pearson’s specification.

“Right, we’ve read about esports, we’ve researched esports, now its time to stop talking and watch esports!”

It became apparent that while all of the students were very familiar with gaming and were regular viewers of streamers and influencers playing their favourite games, only about 50% had actually watched an esports event. This is a necessity for successful achievement on the course and I reinforced the fact that consuming esports, even if it’s not the games they played was critical to their success. It’s important that learner’s step outside their comfort zone and start watching a range of esports in order to understand the space they aspire to work in.

This can’t always be achieved as you can’t control what media they consume outside of the classroom – so time to bring esports into the classroom! When the BBC played their esports documentary series ‘Fight for First’ which features British underdogs Excel Esports as they battled to be taken seriously in the global scene, it’s fair to say the programme was met with mixed reactions. Many ‘esports purists’ weren’t happy with the way the industry was perceived citing a range of ‘issues’ that could be misinterpreted or created a negative perception of esports, while others, who weren’t familiar with esports were intrigued and excited by the nature and scale of something they’d never seen before.

Whatever your own thoughts might be, this series offers excellent teaching opportunities for educators at many levels. I would like to add at this point if you’re thinking of using it that there is some ‘choice’ language within the episodes so please consider your cohort and its appropriateness and you may want to watch the episodes in advance to ensure you’re comfortable with the vernacular.  

To read the rest of the article visit the Pearson website!