Dealing With a Language Barrier on the Clover Park Boys Soccer Team

How important is communication? Have you ever imagined what it would be like to deal with a language barrier because the team has several players from a different country?

Talking serves an important role in sports and on our team. It's a fundamental part of people's everyday life. On the soccer field, it could be anything from supporting your teammates to constructively trying to help them out.

Words have the ability to encourage an athlete on the field or lessen their motivation. It can change the athlete from putting out 100 percent in the match to not even trying anymore.

The Warriors have three starting players who don't speak fluent English.

Coach Mario Person Guadron is bilingual and deals with the language by speaking to the team in English and then turning around and translating it into Spanish. Sometimes he puts in more effort by drawing a diagram to help them out during halftime.

During practice, it’s harder for Guadron because he's only able to be at one place during practice, even though we are split up into an offensive and defensive team.

Communication isn't used just as a supporting role, either. It's also used so teammates don't crash into each another, running the risk of injury. Communication is also used to correct errors on the fly. There are times when I see something that they don't see.

Every team may or may not have a teammate who doesn't speak fluent English. Occasionally, it can impact others on the team, because we aren't able to help that person in quick-decision situations on the soccer field.

Although the Clover Park High School soccer team had some communication problems toward the beginning of the season, we have been improving and talking a lot more on the field. We still have some problems, but we have made a huge jump to becoming a team and getting really close to becoming that family that everyone wants in a team.