Playing through Language Barriers

Playing through Language Barriers

In the early days of football, baseball and basketball leagues, it’s not likely that people would have thought that local teams could ever be as international as they are today. Yet it’s now common for teammates to come from widely diverse backgrounds and speak many different languages.

According to research done in 2013, slightly over 36% of players in European football leagues were not from the countries they played for. In English football’s Premier League, there are players, managers and coaches from more than 60 countries. In the US, nearly 30% of the players in Major League Baseball teams in 2013 were foreign-born, mostly in Latin American countries. And in 2014, the Spurs, in San Antonio, Texas, a team that has won five National Basketball Association championships, had eight players who were from, among other countries, Brazil, Italy, Argentina and France.

It can’t be easy to be a player from abroad. International players must make a move to another country, leaving behind family and friends. And, most importantly for them to be able to do their job, they also have to learn or become more fluent in a foreign language.

How players learn a language varies widely. American Major League Baseball teams have language academies in Dominican Republic where players who may eventually be hired by American baseball teams can learn English. And in England, foreign players, coaches and managers in the Premier League are provided with private tutors. These tutors often use a miniature table-top football pitch and role-playing techniques to help students quickly learn the essential words and expressions needed for practices and matches. According to the British Council, which promotes educational and cultural relations between the UK and the rest of the world, students in the Premier League master the football basics in English in less than 12 hours!

Having teammates from a variety of countries can have unexpected benefits. One is that language learning goes in both directions. In the past five years, about 200 American baseball players have taken Spanish courses, paid for by their teams. Also, some players enjoy being able to communicate with each other during a game in a language that fans or referees may not understand!

(Living English 2 Bachillerato Workbook, Elizabeth Grant and Kaitlin Edwards, Burlington Books: p. 37)