2009345549.pdf

LSHSS

Coach Talk: Linguistic DemandsInherent in Youth Sports

Julie J. MastersonMissouri State University, Springfield

Lisa K. DaviesLee Summit School District, Kansas City, MO

Gerald L. MastersonMissouri State University, Springfield

I n her chapter entitled, BFrom lambie to lambaste:The conceptualization, operationalization and useof academic language in the assessment of ELL

[English language learners] students,[ Bailey (in press) describesthe challenging journey that individuals make as they move from

being able to repeat a caregivers term for a toy (lambie), to

retelling important parts of a story, to hypothesizing about the

physiological effects of smoking, to characterizing a verbal attack

during a debate as a lambaste. Certainly, the skills that one needs

to be a proficient communicator change significantly throughout

the school years. In fact, the language that is used in the school

setting is sufficiently distinct as to be characterized as a specific

register, academic language (AL). There is a renewed interest

in the development of this register due in part to the high-stakes

testing associated with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001

(NCLB) and the role that the students proficiency in AL will play

in his or her performance on such tests. Consequently, several

researchers are working to describe the characteristics of this

linguistic register and to determine the implications for childrens

academic success. In this study, we offer preliminary data to

expand the notion of AL to the realm of extracurricular activities,

specifically, youth sports. Although there are no federal and

state funds tied to successful participation in sports, for many

students, the stakes are indeed high in terms of social success and

physical well-being.

Academic Language (Teacher Talk)

Researchers have used a variety of perspectives to characterize

the language that teachers use when communicating with their

students. Bloom (Bloom & Krathwohl, 1956) is traditionally

credited with developing a hierarchy for classifying the degree of

abstraction that is involved in the questions that teachers typically

use in classrooms. Questions may range from the relatively simple

request for knowledge (i.e., retelling facts) to comprehension,

application, analysis, synthesis, and, finally, evaluation, the most

abstract level, which requires the student to make judgments about

the value of information provided. Blooms taxonomy has been

used in teacher training programs to make teachers explicitly

aware of the requirements they place on students so that the

teachers can systematically manipulate them in an appropriate

manner. Similarly, the taxonomy has been taught to students to

ABSTRACT: Purpose: This investigation expands the notion of

academic language to extracurricular activities and provides

preliminary data regarding linguistic expectations that are placed

on students who are participating in youth sports.

Method: Five coaches of young girls basketball teams

(2 competitive; 3 recreational) were observed during practice

sessions divided into individual versus group and stationary

versus active contexts. Communication was characterized with

various measures of content, form, and use.

Results: Coaches rarely used pauses or communicative

repetitions. Recreational coaches utterances contained more

mazes than competitive coaches utterances. Utterances used

during stationary activities tended to be longer and contain more

than one verb compared to utterances used during active

activities; sentence fragments were more frequent during active

contexts. All coaches used jargon quite frequently.

Clinical Implications: The system reported here can be used to

document linguistic demands in other extracurricular activities,

such as music programs and scouting. Speech-language

pathologists might include clinical activities to help students deal

successfully with the linguistic requirements that are inherent

in sporting activities.

LANGUAGE, SPEECH, AND HEARING SERVICES IN SCHOOLS Vol. 37 3949 January 2006 n American Speech-Language-Hearing Association 390161-1461/06/3701-0039

help them become explicitly aware of teacher expectations so that

they can prepare accordingly.

In a series of classic ethnographic studies, Mehan (1979) and

Cazden (2001) provide detailed descriptions of teacherstudent

interactions in nine classroom lessons that occurred in the early

1970s in San Diego, California. The primary pattern for analysis

was teacher initiation, student response, and teacher evaluation

or feedback (i.e., IRE/IRF). Cazden referred to these IRE/IRF

patterns as the unmarked, or default, options that are used in

traditional classroom lessons. For example, Mehan used this

model to provide a detailed descriptive analysis of Cazden

teaching a lesson on birthplaces. The teacher queried the students

about where each one was born, various students responded

individually, and then the teacher provided feedback. Mehan

discussed the exchanges in terms of both their grammatical

characteristics and function. Mehans descriptions placed IRE

sequences at various points within a broader instructional context,

which was divided into openings, instruction, and closings. Each

portion of the IRE also was subdivided for additional analyses

(e.g., initiations were categorized as having elicitation, informa-

tive, or directive functions). The overall goal of these detailed

analyses was to provide a description of teacher talk, and

practicing teachers were encouraged to record themselves to

analyze the features of their own communication and the demands

it placed on their students.

Recently, researchers at the Center for Research on Evaluation,

Standards, and Student Testing (CRESS) at the University of

California in Los Angeles have been working to identify and

describe the linguistic demands that English language learners

face in the classroom and in textbooks (Bailey & Butler, 2003).

Bailey and Butler noted that most current tests for English

proficiency focus on social, everyday language and do not assess

the formal, or academic, language that is required to be successful

in classrooms and on standardized content tests. Consequently, the

CRESS staff and other experts are piloting models that focus on

the language characteristics that are common across the major

academic domains in kindergarten through 12th grade, including

math, social studies, science, and language arts. The models

include descriptions of language at the lexical, syntactic, discourse,

and/or function levels. For example, Bailey, Butler, LaFramenta,

and Ong (2003) developed the Academic Language Exposure

Checklist (ALEC) to characterize the AL that is used in upper

elementary science classrooms. The ALEC describes language

primarily in terms of its content and function. The aim of the

large-scale CRESS project is to describe the linguistic expectations

that students face both in the classroom and on content tests in

order to optimally equip them to meet these expectations.

Most of the current research regarding AL focuses on

descriptions of what instructors are doing; however, there is some

information regarding the manner in which students respond to the

demands of AL. For example, Charity, Scarborough, and Griffin

(2004) proposed that children who typically use a dialect in

typical communication that is similar to AL (referred to as school

English by Charity et al.) will perform better in early reading

tasks. They studied children in kindergarten through second grade

who used African American English (AAE) to various degrees.

Familiarity with AL was based on the frequency of use of AAE

features during an imitation task of sentences typical of AL. They

found that the production of relatively fewer dialectal differences

was associated with better reading achievement.

Some researchers (e.g., Cazden, 2001; Chilcoat, 1987;

Garmston & Wellman, 1998; Gruenewald & Pollak, 1984) have

reported characteristics of optimal communication used by

teachers. Examples include a decreased speech rate via the use

of pauses; shorter, grammatically simple sentences; frequent

repetitions; fluency; and decreased ambiguity. When teachers use

optimal language, their rate is compatible with the attention and

comprehension-processing rate of the students in the specific

learning context. Students can easily become frustrated and unable

to handle input if the rate of speech is too fast. Information that

is new to the learner and/or highly abstract should be presented

at a slower rate than information that is familiar and concrete

(Chilcoat, 1987). According to Chilcoat, pausing periodically

allows students to process the input and attempt to make sense of

it, to reflect on what has just been said, to consider their own

replies to what they just heard, and to decide whether they have

questions or need an example. Many studies have shown that

when teachers pause for 3 to 4 s, instead of the usual 1 s, students

respond more, their average length of response is longer, and

there is an increased proportion of student-initiated questions

(Nunan, 1991).

Maintenance of fluency is another facilitative characteristic

of teacher talk. Optimal communication is characterized by

complete sentences rather than false starts, choppy and disjointed

sentences, and verbal fill-ins, which are often characterized as

mazes (Leadholm & Miller, 1994). Mazes allow less opportu-

nity for student reflection, input, questions, and interactions

(Chilcoat, 1987).

Grammatically simple statements are helpful for comprehen-

sion (Gruenewald & Pollak, 1984). Often, students demonstrate

difficulty with comprehension of a task because the grammar

or clause structure in each utterance is too complex (Gruenewald

& Pollak, 1984).

Teachers use questions almost exclusively in carrying out their

objectives for educating children (Wallach & Miller, 1988).

Asking questions enables the teacher to control the quality and

direction of the discussion. Therefore, the teachers ability to ask

good questions can extend a students thinking and increase his or

her ability to solve the problem (Gruenewald & Pollak, 1984).

The use of genuine, or referential, questions for which the teacher

does not know the answer can be conducive to learning (Cullen,

1998; Thornsbury, 1996). Questioning can also be used to help

guide students through the necessary problem steps in deriving

a solution. Guiding questions can be used to help direct the

students focus on the pertinent elements in a problem or in-

structional task. Display questions, in which the teacher already

knows the answer but asks for the primary purpose, can also be

used in order to allow the students to display their understanding

or knowledge (Cullen, 1998; Thornsbury, 1996). According to

Thornsbury (p. 281), Bthere is plenty of evidence to suggest thatthe vast majority of questions teachers ask are display questions,

whereas, in Freal life, of course, most questions are referential.[If a teacher uses display questions excessively and exclusively,

the child may become cognitively overloaded and may not

participate in the discussion (Wallach & Miller, 1988).

Content feedback is another aspect of optimal teacher talk

(Cullen, 1998). When teachers use content feedback, they focus

on what the student said (i.e., the content) as opposed to how the

student said it (Cullen, 1998; Thornsbury, 1996). Such a focus

40 LANGUAGE, SPEECH, AND HEARING SERVICES IN SCHOOLS Vol. 37 3949 January 2006

allows for confirmation, clarification, or modification of the

students knowledge of an important instructional concept.

A final beneficial characteristic of teacher talk is the decreased

use of ambiguous terms and nonliteral language. The use of exact,

precise vocabulary, such as using nouns instead of pronouns,

reduces the chance of the child becoming confused and

consequently not comprehending the message (Chilcoat, 1987).

Although nonliteral language is first understood during the

preschool years, comprehension steadily improves throughout

childhood and adolescence and into adulthood (Nippold, 1998).

Participation in Youth Sports

The purpose of the current study was to pilot a classification

system and provide a preliminary description of the commu-

nication demands that are faced by students engaging in youth

sports. Sports and competition play an important role in the lives

of many young people in todays society. According to recent data

provided by the National Council of Youth Sports (NCYS, 2001),

approximately 38 million children between the ages of 8 and 18 in

the United States participate in youth sports in any given year.

These data do not specify the percentage of participants who have

been identified as having disabilities. However, data from Special

Olympics indicate that there are 1.2 million individuals with

disabilities who do participate in sports (Special Olympics, 2004).

The main reasons that young people participate in organized

sports are to have fun, learn skills, develop fitness, and spend time

with friends (Butcher, Linder, & Johns, 2002).

The NCYS data indicate that overall participation in youth

sports has increased during the past few years; however, some

students elect not to continue in a specific sporting activity.

Butcher, Linder, and Johns (2002) reported four main reasons for

discontinuing participation: (a) lack of enjoyment, (b) not enough

time for other (nonsports) activities, (c) too much pressure to

perform well, and (d) need for additional time in a different sport.

It seems reasonable to expect that a students inability to handle

the communication demands involved in practice and game

situations could play a significant role in any of the reasons for

choosing not to continue participation in sports. For example,

confusion regarding instructions for implementing a particular

play would likely decrease enjoyment and result in increased

pressure to perform.

Most of the literature on coaching methods focuses on

instruction, demonstration, and feedback (Martens, 1997). Hodges

and Franks (2002) cited the considerable empirical evidence that

supports the use of optimal feedback by both coaches and teachers.

However, they reported that there is little evidence to justify the

provision of prepractice instruction even though most educational

programs for coaches emphasize this technique. Hodges and

Franks suggest that optimal instruction is crucial, and the effec-

tiveness of instruction will likely be directly correlated with the

quality of player performance. Much of the current coaching

literature (e.g., Martens, 1997) has limited information on specific

communication techniques for instruction that might be facilitative.

Suggestions related to communication tend to focus on the atti-

tude of the coach and his or her relationship with the players as

opposed to the content and form of the language used. Coaches are

typically encouraged to use positive instructions (i.e., comments

regarding what the player does correctly) rather than negative

feedback (i.e., comments regarding what the player is doing wrong).

Devine, McGovern, and Herman (1998) discussed the inclu-

sion of children with disabilities in youth sports. Although most of

the suggested accommodations focus on the physical and equip-

ment needs of the potential participants, Devine et al. did indicate

that players with disabilities may have trouble understanding a

sequence of coaching tips, abiding by the rules of play, and

appreciating the need for instructional prompting. There is little,

if any, specific information regarding the manner in which a

coach, or leader, might adjust his or her linguistic input to

communicate optimally with players with special needs.

In summary, there is a current emphasis on obtaining adequate

descriptions of AL in order to document the linguistic expect-

ations that are placed on students in the classroom. The present

study was designed to broaden the notion of AL to the realm of

extracurricular activities. A descriptive system was developed to

characterize the language used by competitive and recreational

basketball coaches of young elementary players. The system is

similar to the ALEC used by Bailey et al. (2003) in that practices

were first divided into various groupings and activities, and

then the coachs communication was described according to the

function and content of instructions. Measures of verbal fluency

and syntactic complexity also were taken.

METHOD

Participants

Five youth basketball coaches of girls between the ages of 9

and 14 (Grades 48) served as participants for this study. Two of

the coaches were coaches of competitive teams. Competitive

teams referred to teams that played games and/or practiced more

than once a week at least 9 months out of the year. Three of

the coaches were coaches of recreational teams. Teams were

considered recreational if they played games and practiced once

a week for a period of 6 to 12 weeks during a given year. Ques-

tionnaires were used to obtain information about each coachs

experience with coaching and his own participation in sports

as a player. All of the coaches were male and ranged in age

from 31 to 43 years of age. Each coach was the parent of two

elementary-age children, with the exception of Coach 4, who had

three. Coach 1 (competitive) had been serving as a volunteer

coach for 25 years and had participated in sports during elemen-

tary and high school. Coach 2 (competitive) had coached for

4 years and had played sports throughout elementary and

high school and was a collegiate athlete. Coaches 3, 4, and 5

(recreational) had served as volunteer coaches for 8, 8, and 5

years, respectively, and all participated in sports during elemen-

tary and high school.

Data Collection

Potential participants were identified by communicating with

local youth sports organizations. In order to control for the

Hawthorne effect (i.e., that the coaches would act atypically

because they knew their communication was being analyzed),

each coach was given only a broad explanation of the study

(i.e., a study on coaches interactions with their players). At the

beginning of each data collection session, the young athletes were

Masterson et al.: Coach Talk 41

told that the observer was studying the way in which basketball

practices were conducted with young athletes and they were

requested to perform as they typically did during practice. Each

coach was observed by the second author during two 45-min

practice sessions, with the exception of Coach 5, who was seen

only once. All samples were obtained in a gymnasium during

practice sessions with the entire team.

The ALEC (Bailey et al., 2003) classifies main activities into

various subtypes (e.g., group instruction, individual problem

solving) and groupings of interlocutors (whole class, small groups,

individuals) that are typical of classroom settings. Similarly, we

segmented each 45-min session into four speaking contexts that

are characteristic of basketball practices. Group stationary

referred to contexts in which the coach was speaking to at least

two athletes who were nonactive. Individual stationary referred to

conditions in which the coach was speaking to only one athlete

who was nonactive. Group active referred to contexts in which the

coach was speaking to at least two athletes who were active and

moving. Individual active referred to conditions in which the

coach was speaking to only one athlete who was active. Each

context was reviewed by the investigators in order to select a

5-min segment in which the coach was (a) talking about issues

related to basketball and (b) speaking rather than silent for most of

the segment. The four 5-min segments yielded a total of 20 min of

data from each session to analyze. Data from the two practice

sessions were collapsed, resulting in 40-min samples for Coaches

1 through 4. Because Coach 5 was seen only once, his sample

consisted of 20 min of communication. These samples were

analyzed for the speech-language features described below.

A Sony camcorder, series LXI, and a Panasonic microcassette

recorder (Model RN-404) were used to record video and audio

samples of communication during the practice sessions. Each

coach wore an Optimus omnidirectional tie clip lapel microphone

on his collar. The video camera was carried by the investigator,

who remained within approximately 30 feet of the coach at all

times.

Speech and Language Measures

All samples were orthographically transcribed by the second

author. Continuous utterances were divided into communication

units (C-units), which consisted of each independent clause and

its modifiers (Loban, 1976). This broad definition of countable

utterances was extended to include structurally incomplete

elliptical sentences (e.g., like that, good, quick), which are

common in oral language. All utterances produced in the chosen

5-min segments were included in the analyses.

Measures of form. Pause usage within a sentence was

analyzed. The use of pauses by teachers is considered facilitative

(Chilcoat, 1987; Nunan, 1991). In the present study, we noted

all pauses that were Q1 s long. A minimum length of 1 s to identifypauses has been used in the literature regarding both normal

hesitation phenomena (e.g., Goldman-Eisler, 1968; Masterson &

Kamhi, 1991) and stuttering behavior (e.g., Fowler & Ingham,

1986). These pauses were totaled for each context and the overall

frequency was documented. Frequency was divided by the num-

ber of utterances in each context to yield a ratio of pauses to

utterances within each context.

Cazden (2001) reported that teacher talk is characterized by the

use of communicative repetitions, or phrases repeated in order to

emphasize or reiterate a key word or phrase. Communicative

repetitions were tallied in the present study. For example, one

coach repeated a portion of an instruction for emphasis (BKeepyour dribble low. Keep it low.[) The number of communicativerepetitions in each context was divided by the total number of

utterances in that context to yield a ratio.

Use of mazes was measured in the present study. Chilcoat

(1987) indicated that optimal communication is fluent as opposed

to containing mazes. Filled pauses (e.g., um, er), nonmeaningful

and noncommunicative repetitions (e.g., You (you) spread out),

and revisions, which include both false starts and reformulations

(e.g., [Were not] Were going to give you an inbounds play), were

counted as mazes (Leadholm & Miller, 1994). Maze usage was

calculated by counting the number of utterances that contain

mazes and dividing that total by the number of total utterances for

each context.

Gruenewald and Pollak (1984) indicated that comprehension

was influenced by syntactic complexity. In the current study,

a four-level scale was used to characterize sentence complexity.

The first level was fragment, which referred to an utterance that

did not include both a noun and a verb. Elliptical utterances

were classified as fragments. For example, Coach 1 said, BLittleahead of her, Susie[ during one of the practice drills. Thesecond level was simple, which included a subject and a verb.

Commands with the understood subject (e.g., Go over there) were

classified as simple sentences. An example of a simple utterance

was Coach 1s statement, BPut the ball on the floor, Susie.[The third level was compound, which referred to sentences that

contained either compound phrases or clauses. For example,

Coach 1 said, BTake one more dribble in and get your lay-up.[The fourth level was embedded, which referred to sentences

containing embedded infinitive verbs, noun-modifying clauses,

and adverbial clauses. An example of an embedded utterance used

by Coach 1 was, BNow if thats too much weight to lift, setthem down and do them without the weights.[ A percentage foreach type for each coach in each context and overall was deter-

mined. Syntactic complexity was also characterized by the mean

length of utterance (MLU) for each context. Calculation of

MLU was done by determining the number of morphemes in each

context and dividing the sum by the number of utterances in

that context.

Measures of content. The use of nonliteral language (i.e.,

jargon, idioms, irony, and ambiguous language) was measured.

Jargon refers to terms that are familiar to a specific profession or

social group. For this study, any term that was related specifically

to basketball was considered jargon. Idioms refer to accepted

phrases that have a meaning that is different from the literal.

The use of irony refers to when a speaker says the opposite of

what he or she believes (Wallach & Butler, 1994). Ambiguous

language refers to language in which the referent is unclear due to

the use of words or phrases that communicate vague objects,

things, or groups (Chilcoat, 1987). For this study, any pronoun

that was used with a referent that was not in the same sentence

or in the previous sentences was considered ambiguous. Utter-

ances containing each type of nonliteral language were added up

for each context and then divided by the total number of utter-

ances in that context. This yielded a percentage of utterances

containing each type of nonliteral language in each context for

each coach.


Because most of the literature on coaching techniques includes

an emphasis on the use of positive feedback, the number of

positive and negative statements used by each coach was docu-

mented. Each utterance produced by the coaches was rated as

either positive or negative in nature. For example, BShoot the ball[was positive, and BDont shoot the ball[ was negative. Theaddition of a negative word made an utterance semantically

negative. The percentage of utterances that were classified as

positive or negative for each coach in each context was calculated.

Measure of function. The ALEC (Bailey et al., 2003) lists

six functions that characterize oral classroom instruction. These

include explanation, description, comparison, clarification, direc-

tion, and verbal response. In the current study, 13 communicative

functions that were characteristic of coaching were identified. The

first communicative function was instructing, which referred to

utterances that were providing instruction about a skill or drill.

Organizing referred to utterances that organized the athletes into a

drill or a specific location. Confirming understanding referred to

utterances that confirmed that the athletes understood what was

just said or demonstrated. Praising characterized utterances that

gave praise and positive reinforcement. Getting attention was

assigned to utterances that were attempts to regain the athletes

attention. Requesting action referred to utterances that requested

the athlete or athletes to change what they were doing and do

something else. Requesting information characterized utterances

that asked the athletes a question that required a response.

Criticizing was assigned to utterances that criticized an athlete or

her performance and had a negative connotation. Encouraging

referred to utterances that encouraged the athlete to do something

but were not necessarily positive reinforcement. Responding was

used to designate utterances that responded to a question or

statement of an athlete. Showing gratitude characterized utter-

ances that demonstrated appreciation to the athlete. Informing was

assigned to utterances that informed or told, but not instructed,

what the athlete just did or did not do. Finally, defining referred to

utterances that were used to define a term. Example utterances

of each type of communicative function are located in Table 1.

Each utterance was assigned a code for communicative function.

The total number of utterances for each function was tallied

and then divided to provide a percentage for each type in each

context.

Reliability

Each utterance was transcribed and initially coded by the

second author. Interjudge reliability was determined by comparing

the investigators codes and those of a second rater. A student in

the final year of her undergraduate program in communication

sciences and disorders served as the second rater for pauses,

communicative repetitions, communicative function, grammatical

structure, and nonliteral language, and a graduate student in

communication sciences and disorders served as the second rater

for length, verb usage, words, seconds, mazes, and positiveness.

The entire sample from Coach 1 was used for training. Classi-

fication of each utterance into the various categories for content,

form, and function was discussed by the primary and secondary

raters until 100% agreement was established. For Coaches 2, 3,

4, and 5, interjudge reliability was determined by having the

second coder independently rate 20% of each coachs sample.

For the continuous measures (i.e., length of utterance, verbs

per utterance, words, and pause durations in seconds), a point-

by-point analysis was used. If the two coders agreed, that quantity

of measurement was considered as points of agreement. If the

codes did not match, the quantity of agreement and quantity of

disagreement were noted. For example, if the primary investigator

coded an utterance as having three morphemes and the secondary

coder coded it as having four morphemes, the points of agree-

ment were 3 and the points of disagreement were 1. Points of

agreement were totaled for each language sample and divided by

the total points of agreement plus the total points of disagreement.

This yielded a percentage of agreement for each measure.

For nominal measures (i.e., pauses, communicative repetitions,

mazes, communicative function, grammatical structure, non-

literal language, and positiveness), percentage of agreement was

determined. By comparing the results of the measurements for

each utterance between the two investigators, each utterance was

considered an agreement or disagreement. Total number of agree-

ments was summed for each measure and then divided by the total

number of utterances. This yielded a percentage of agreement.

Interjudge reliability for Coaches 2, 3, 4, and 5 is shown in

Table 2. Percentages ranged from 81% to 100%. Agreement

appeared to be relatively higher for the more objective measure-

ments (e.g., utterance length) and relatively lower for the more

subjective measurements (e.g., communicative function).

RESULTS

The method for data collection used in this investigation

yielded a total of 4,158 utterances to analyze. Total utterances

collected across the two sessions for Coaches 1 through 4 ranged

from 705 to 1020, and the single session used for Coach 5 resulted

in 653 utterances (see Table 3). All of the coaches spoke relatively

more during group activities than individual ones, and 3 of the

5 coaches spoke more during active contexts than stationary

activities (see Table 4). Percentages and means were calculated

Table 1. Example utterances representing each communicativefunction.

Communicative function Example utterances

Instructing BOkay, really concentrate on keeping theball out on the fingertips.[

Organizing (a drill) BSusie, would you go in that line downthere and balance it out.[

Confirming understanding BOkay?[Praising BNice job![Getting attention BSusie![Requesting action BGo back to the free throw line.[Requesting information BWhat should you have done on that?[Criticizing BBody slamming em isnt going to work.[Encouraging BYoure alright![Responding BYes, youre right.[Showing gratitude BThank you![Informing BThe defenders right in front of you.[Defining BThat means if youve got the ball here

and everybodys running this way,thats the backside over there.[


for each variable of interest in each context across all coaches.

Additionally, comparisons were made between the competitive

youth coaches and the recreational youth coaches.

Measures of Form

Measures of form included percentage of utterances with

pauses, communicative repetitions, mazes, and MLU. These

measures are illustrated in Table 5. Form also was analyzed by

assigning each utterance to a category for syntactic complexity;

these results are shown in Table 6.

Pauses. Pause usage was somewhat comparable across

coaches. None of the coaches used pauses lasting 3 s or longer in

any of the contexts. Utterances with 1-s pauses were slightly more

prevalent for Coach 1 than the others, and Coach 4 did not use

pauses during any of his utterances. Pauses tended to occur most

often during the stationary activities and least often during the

active contexts. There appears to be no difference between com-

petitive coaches and recreational coaches in pause usage. One-

second pause usage among all coaches is illustrated in Table 5.

Communicative repetitions. Total use of communicative

repetitions ranged from 3% to12% for all coaches. All coaches

used communicative repetitions more during the active contexts

than the stationary contexts, and there do not appear to be any

differences between competitive and recreational coaches use of

repetition. Coach 5 had the highest occurrence of communicative

repetitions (20%), and these occurred during the group active

context. Use of communicative repetitions is shown in Table 5.

Mazes. Utterances produced by the competitive coaches

tended to contain fewer mazes (range = 0%7%) than those

produced by the recreational coaches (range = 1%23%). For all

coaches, mazes tended to occur more during stationary activities,

and this difference appears to be stronger in the recreational

coaches. Maze usage for all coaches across all contexts is

illustrated in Table 5.

MLU. Total MLU was moderately variable across all coaches

and within coach type, ranging from 3.98 to 6.54. Each coachs

MLU was longer in the stationary contexts than in the active

contexts. There appears to be no differences between competitive

and recreational coaches. MLU for all coaches is located in Table 5.

Sentence types. As shown in Table 6, compound and

embedded sentences were rarely used during the active portions

of the practice sessions. Although simple sentences were most

prevalent for all coaches, the distribution of sentence types for all

of the coaches except Coach 2 was relatively equal during

stationary activities. The recreational coaches tended to replace

their use of multiverb utterances that characterized the stationary

activities with single-verb utterances during the active contexts.

On the other hand, the competitive coaches tended to use

relatively more fragments along with simple sentences during

the active contexts.

Measures of Content

Measures of content included the percentage of utterances

containing jargon or ambiguous terms and the percentage of

utterances that were semantically positive or negative. These

measures are illustrated in Table 7.

Nonliteral language. Original categories of nonliteral

language included jargon, ambiguous terms/phrases, idioms, and

sarcasm. Data analysis revealed little to no use of idioms and

sarcasm by the coaches; the percentage of utterances containing

Table 2. Interjudge reliability percentages for samples fromCoaches 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Coach 2 Coach 3 Coach 4 Coach 5

Utterance length 98 100 99 100Verb usage 92 91 90 89Words 99 99 99 100Pause duration in seconds 100 100 100 100Number of pauses 97 98 99 100Communicative repetitions 98 100 99 97Mazes 100 100 99 100Communicative function 83 81 80 83Grammatical structure 86 84 82 87Nonliteral language 81 84 96 89Positiveness 99 100 97 98

Table 3. Number of utterances analyzed for each coach ineach context.

Stationary Active

Group Individual Group Individual Total

CompetitiveCoach 1 246 187 420 167 1,020Coach 2 197 168 429 75 869

RecreationalCoach 3 221 250 50 184 705Coach 4 242 261 299 109 911Coach 5 129 148 315 61 653

Total 4158

Note. The amount of time analyzed for each context was held constant.Ten-minute samples from each context were analyzed for Coaches 1through 4; five-minute samples from each context were analyzedfor Coach 5.

Table 4. Percentage of total utterances produced in eachspeaking context.

Stationary Active

Group Individual Total Group Individual Total

CompetitiveCoach 1 24 18 42 41 16 58Coach 2 23 19 42 49 9 58

RecreationalCoach 3 31 35 67 7 26 33Coach 4 27 29 55 33 12 45Coach 5 20 23 42 48 9 58

Note. The amount of time analyzed for each context was held constant.Ten-minute samples from each context were analyzed for Coaches 1through 4; five-minute samples from each context were analyzedfor Coach 5.


these forms ranged from 0% to 2%. Consequently, these

categories were not used in comparative analyses. The majority of

the utterances produced by all coaches contained either jargon,

ambiguous terms, or both. However, there appeared to be a

difference between competitive and recreational coaches on the

use of jargon and ambiguous terms. As seen in Table 7, the

utterances of competitive coaches contained more jargon than the

utterances of recreational coaches. The range of jargon use by

competitive coaches was 60% to 95% of their utterances, whereas

recreational coaches ranged from 21% to 73%. On the other hand,

recreational coaches used more ambiguous terms than did com-

petitive coaches. As seen in Table 7, the range of utterances

containing ambiguous information for recreational coaches was

39% to 84%; in competitive coaches, the range was 11% to 49%.

Positiveness. The use of semantically positive utterances was

similar across all coaches in all contexts. All coaches used a

majority (range = 86%98%) of semantically positive utterances.

Fewer utterances (range = 3%18%) were semantically negative.

These data indicate that the coaches focused on talking about what

their players should do as opposed to what they should not do.

Measures of Use

Original categories for communicative function are shown in

Table 1; however, due to limited occurrence of some of the

Table 5. Coaches use of pauses, communicative repetitions, mazes, and mean length of utterance (MLU).

Stationary Active

Group Individual Group Individual

% Utterances containing 1-s pauses CompetitiveCoach 1 6 2 0 0Coach 2 3 1 0 2

RecreationalCoach 3 4 1 0 1Coach 4 0 0 0 0Coach 5 3 2 0 0

% Utterances containing communicative repetitions CompetitiveCoach 1 1 2 8 9Coach 2 3 4 6 8


% Utterances containing mazes CompetitiveCoach 1 6 6 1 3Coach 2 3 7 1 0


Mean length of utterance CompetitiveCoach 1 8.66 7.71 3.23 5.00Coach 2 5.05 5.06 2.79 4.27

RecreationalCoach 3 7.84 7.34 2.70 4.92Coach 4 6.72 6.86 3.62 4.55Coach 5 6.19 5.99 2.75 3.88

Table 6. Percentage of total utterances classified as each sentence type.

Stationary Active


CompetitiveCoach 1 Fragment 27 19 37 32

Simple 42 54 56 51Compound 16 17 4 12Embedded 15 10 2 6

Coach 2 Fragment 37 25 46 14Simple 47 59 49 81Compound 9 6 1 4Embedded 6 11 4 2

RecreationalCoach 3 Fragment 28 28 28 28

Simple 37 38 70 57Compound 15 15 2 9Embedded 21 19 0 8




specific functions, categories were collapsed into more general

areas. Instructing, informing, organizing, and defining were

grouped into informing. Confirming understanding, getting

attention, requesting information, and requesting action were

combined into requesting. Praising, encouraging, and showing

gratitude were grouped into rewarding. Responding and criticizing

were left as individual categories.

As seen in Table 8, both the competitive and recreational

coaches used most of their utterances to provide information to

their players, and none of them criticized the players very often.

There were some context differences, however. Coaches tended to

make relatively more requests during the stationary contexts and

offer more rewards during the active contexts. Responses were

rarely used by any of the coaches.

DISCUSSION

The present study was designed to extend the current efforts to

describe AL to one type of extracurricular activity and provide

preliminary data regarding the communicative demands that

are placed on children who participate in youth sports. This

information should be valuable for clinicians in both planning

intervention for their clients who participate in youth sports and

providing consultation for adults who serve as volunteer coaches.

The following paragraphs highlight the descriptive findings and

associated clinical implications, evaluate the descriptive method

used in the present study, and offer suggestions for additional

research regarding the language demands inherent in extra-

curricular activities.

Utterances used during stationary activities tended to be longer

and contain more than one verb. Further, with the exception of

Coach 2, the distribution of sentence types was fairly balanced

during the stationary activities. During the active portions of

practice, the recreational coaches tended to replace their use of

multiverb utterances with simple, complete sentences. On the

other hand, Coach 1 tended to use relatively more fragments along

with simple sentences during both active contexts, and Coach 2

used relatively more fragments during the group active context.

The reason for the difference in relative use of fragments between

the coaches is unclear. One possibility is that the competitive

coaches experience gave them insight into which key terms were

most important and required the greatest emphasis during active

periods of practice.

Pauses lasting at least 3 s are considered facilitative for

communication in the classroom (Chilcoat, 1987). No coaches in

any practice context ever used a pause lasting that long, so we

focused on the use of shorter (1 s) pauses, which were also

used minimally. The majority of the 1-s pauses occurred in the

stationary contexts. This seems logical because the athletes are

Table 7. Coaches use of jargon, ambiguous utterances, and semantically positive and negative utterances.

Stationary Active


% Utterances containing jargon CompetitiveCoach 1 79 74 69 80Coach 2 95 90 87 60


% Utterances containing ambiguous information CompetitiveCoach 1 45 49 47 44Coach 2 11 25 19 46


% Semantically positive utterances CompetitiveCoach 1 90 93 97 95Coach 2 97 87 97 92


% Semantically negative utterances CompetitiveCoach 1 10 7 3 5Coach 2 3 13 3 8



able to attend solely to the coach, and the use of a pause gives the

children time to digest the input and make sense out of it. Pause

use during the active portions of a session may not be feasible.

The players are in motion and the situation is constantly changing,

so pausing may result in an opportune teaching moment being

lost. Another possible interpretation of the data regarding pauses

is that they were artifacts of the types of sentences that were used

in each context. Because the utterances were shorter and less

complex during the active segments, there would have been fewer

opportunities for pauses to occur. The relationship between pauses

and sentence types should be considered in future studies.

The use of communicative repetitions has been shown to be

facilitative for comprehension of instructions (Cazden, 2001).

All coaches used more communicative repetitions in the active

contexts as opposed to the stationary contexts. This is somewhat

puzzling because active contexts should not necessarily require

more repetitions than stationary activities. Perhaps the repeti-

tions were more in reaction to a perceived need for additional

instruction by the coach based on player performance during drills

as opposed to a general repetition for communicative emphasis.

With the exception of Coach 3 during stationary contexts, the

coaches utterances contained less than 10% mazes, which is

consistent with expected levels (Leadholm & Miller, 1994) and

conducive for comprehension (Chilcoat, 1987). However, utter-

ances that were produced by the competitive coaches tended to

contain fewer mazes (range = 0%7%) than those produced by the

recreational coaches (range = 1%23%). This is a fairly striking

difference and is likely due to the competitive coaches having

more experience and being more comfortable when giving

instructions, feedback, and so forth to young players. This is

consistent with the classic findings of Goldman-Eisler (1968)

that hesitation phenomena (i.e., mazes) increase as formulation

demands increase in adult speakers. The notion that the recre-

ational coaches were less proficient in providing information is

further supported by the relatively higher occurrence of ambig-

uous information in the language of recreational coaches (range =

12%29%) compared to competitive coaches (range = 4%24%).

It is likely that familiarity and experience also influence the

use of jargon. All of the coaches used jargon (range = 17%42%)

during all contexts; however, the competitive coaches used it more

often than did the recreational coaches. This was likely due to

an assumed familiarity with the terms by the competitive players,

who had more experience and had played more games. However,

the degree to which this assumption was warranted remains

unclear. It would be interesting indeed to determine comprehen-

sion of instructions such as, Bkeep your head up while dribbling,[Bblock out on the rebound,[ Bstay in the paint on defense, but getout wide on offense,[ and so forth regardless of player experience.Future studies should include measures of player response and

performance to determine the effects of jargon.

Both the competitive and recreational coaches used most of

their utterances to provide information to their players, and none

of them criticized the players very often. This is consistent with

the findings regarding semantically positive and semantically

Table 8. Percentage of total utterances used for each communicative function.

Stationary Active


CompetitiveCoach 1 Informing 73 60 62 69

Responding 1 2 0 1Requesting 25 38 9 13Rewarding 1 2 27 16Criticizing 0 0 0 1

Coach 2 Informing 53 53 48 73Responding 2 1 0 0Requesting 43 37 12 8Rewarding 2 4 40 19Criticizing 0 5 1 0

RecreationalCoach 3 Informing 59 56 70 66

Responding 5 3 0 1Requesting 30 35 14 15Rewarding 1 2 14 16Criticizing 3 4 2 2




negative utterances. These data indicate that the coaches spent

most of their practices telling the players what to do rather than

telling them what not to do or criticizing them when they did

something wrong. This likely had a positive effect on those

children with limited exposure to and experiences with basket-

ball (Chilcoat, 1987). There were some context differences in

communicative function in that coaches tended to make more

requests during stationary contexts and provide more rewards

during active contexts. Perhaps this is related to the specific use

of requests for confirmation, which occurred far more often in

stationary contexts and rarely in active ones. It makes sense that

coaches would be taking the time to ask for confirmations during

stationary teaching times and not active drills. On the other hand,

the relatively higher use of rewards during the active contexts

indicates that coaches, as expected, tend to reward athletic

performance rather than verbal indications of understanding or

compliance. The fact that responses were rarely used by any of the

coaches in any context also is interesting. Perhaps the players

did not ask questions or request information, even when they

needed to do so. Future studies that focus on player performance

and understanding may shed light on this issue.

Clinicians might consider the findings from the current study

when planning their goals and therapeutic activities for their

clients who participate in youth sports. According to the current

Scope of Practice in Speech-Language Pathology (American

Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2001), the Boverallobjective of speech-language pathology services is to optimize

individuals ability to communicateIin natural environments andthus improve their quality of life. This objective is best achieved

through the provision of integrated services in meaningful life

contexts[ (pp. I26). Certainly, practice sessions and games aremeaningful life contexts for students who participate in sports. For

example, we found that all of the coaches tended to use some

basketball jargon during their sessions. Clinicians could gather a

list of such terms and use them when they are targeting nonliteral

language in their treatment sessions.

The communication variables measured in the current study

seemed to capture the essence of the complexity of coach talk.

It might be beneficial to include descriptions of prosody in future

research. According to Owens (2001), children tend to listen

better when a pleasant tone is used. However, the complexity and

high levels of noise and activity that characterize sports practices

likely require high intensity and perhaps even harsh tones by

coaches. As with the variables measured in this study, documen-

tation of the intonational characteristics of coach talk would be

helpful. Collection of sufficient data would require adequate audio

recording, with careful positioning of the microphone and wire-

less equipment that would minimally interfere with the coachs

typical activities and style.

Two 45-min practice sessions per coach were recorded, with the

exception of Coach 5, for whom only one 45-min practice session

was observed. Data transcription and analysis were time intensive.

It took roughly 5 hr to transcribe one coach over two practices and

then an additional 5 hr to analyze the data for each coach. It ap-

peared that all of the coaches were consistent with all measures

during each context. There did not appear to be important dif-

ferences in data obtained during the two practices; that is, coaches

seemed to be consistent across practices. The data from Coach 5,

based on only one practice, were similar to those from the other

coaches, which were collected during two practices. Therefore, it is

likely that 20 min collected from a single practice session would

be sufficient for data collection and analysis in future studies.

Further specification of the type and complexity of ambiguous

terms and jargon also would be beneficial. Instead of simply

indicating whether an utterance contained ambiguous and/or

jargon terms, it may be helpful to assign complexity levels to

each type of ambiguity and jargon. Jargon terms might be

categorized according to their frequency of use by typical coaches.

For example, we found that a term such as Bblock out[ (forrebounds) was used more often than a term such as Bin the paint[(to refer to the area within the shooting lane). As for ambiguity,

complexity might be based on the degree of separation a pro-

noun used and its noun referent.

The current study focused solely on the communication

patterns of the adults and did not include any measures for the

effects of these patterns on the players. Although it is reasonable

to assume that characteristics that are facilitative in the classroom

would be facilitative in general, actual response data will need to

be collected in order to be sure. Measures of player response could

include items such as successful compliance with instructions, as

well as player reaction to session and retention in the sport. Giving

questionnaires to the young athletes about various basketball

concepts and jargon could provide information about beginning

levels of familiarity with key concepts. Documentation of player

response to specific coaching instructions characterized by the

measures employed in the current investigation is needed.

Although we do not have specific data regarding the effects

that the coaches communication patterns had on the athletes

understanding and performance, there are some general principles

from the literature on teacher talk that clinicians might consider

when collaborating with their colleagues who are coaches or

providing consultation to volunteer coaches. For example, we

found that when our participants were in stationary contexts, the

use of multiverb utterances increased and the use of communi-

cative repetitions decreased. Further, none of the coaches used

pauses greater than 3 s in any of the contexts. Consequently,

coaches might be encouraged to pay particular attention to the use

of optimal communication strategies during stationary contexts.

That is, they should focus on the use of simple, straightforward

directions that occur within simple sentence structures or com-

pound utterances and use communicative repetitions in order to

highlight the most pertinent instructions. Further, they might be

encouraged to parse their instructions with pauses in order to

allow children time to process the information.

Finally, the current method could be employed to study the

language used by adults who lead children in other sports, such as

gymnastics, dance, or tae kwon do, as well as other recreational

activities, such as scouting and music. Such activities certainly

represent meaningful contexts to children and youth, and efforts

by speech-language pathologists to learn more about the demands

of each context may lead to the development of strategies to

help students both with and without disabilities participate

successfully.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This manuscript is based on a thesis that was conducted by the second

author under the direction of the first and third authors. Partial funding was


provided by The Graduate College, Southwest Missouri State University.

We thank Dr. Chuck Williams for his input regarding the study, Lindsey

Wallace for reliability scoring, and the coaches and players who allowed

their practices to be observed. A portion of the data provided in this paper

was presented as part of a student poster session at the 2001 convention of

the Missouri Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

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Received February 17, 2004

Revision received September 29, 2004

Accepted January 6, 2005

DOI: 10.1044/0161-1461(2006/005)

Contact author: Julie J. Masterson, Department of Communication

Sciences and Disorders, Missouri State University, 901 South National

Avenue, Springfield, MO 65897. E-mail: [email protected]


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