England Handball archive Issue 1 September 2013 | Page 7

PASS IT ON!

7

All photos © NDCS

clubs do not trust me or have faith that I can deliver, even with an interpreter. But, again, coaching via an interpreter is coaching through a third party – it is not e?ective enough. ‘Football is all about communication, and hearing teams/players know this. They need to hear information. I demonstrate visually – you will see my information. For many players, 80 percent is communication and only 20 percent is skill.’ But things have been implemented to change the attitude towards deafness in sport, whether it is a coach or athlete with the hearing impairment. Among the initiatives is sports coach UK’s ‘E?ective Communication: Coaching Deaf People in Sport’ workshop, developed in association with UK Deaf Sport and the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS), aimed at coaches who want to understand more about coaching deaf people, but also coaches who are just looking to develop their non-verbal communication skills. Taking part in the three-hour workshop, that he now leads, Costi revelled in the feedback he was able to give on what has previously been an overlooked aspect of coaching. Another attendee was Laura Copplestone, a Multi-sports coach to children aged four to 18 with an array of disabilities, who was part of the ?rst session in Leeds. She highlighted it being ‘really useful to hear everyone’s ideas for incorporating deaf youngsters into their current sports clubs’. ‘It can be di?cult for me to hear what the children are saying, especially if they have a speech impediment,’ she says, ‘and if they all start talking at the same time. But I sit them down in a semi-circle and explain one at a time and make them face me when speaking. That seems to do the trick.’ Coaches with hearing impairments, in Copplestone’s eyes, can bene?t from the more alternative nature of her coaching when compared with the traditional approaches. ‘Non-verbal communication can help develop your overall communication

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skills as a coach, as it makes it inclusive to deaf people,’ she adds. ‘Even when, for example, I am oral in my coaching approach, if the coach is simply deaf-aware, it makes it so much easier to partake.’ Costi’s viewpoint is di?erent. On the same subject, he says: ‘It’s how you coach a team as a whole that makes you an e?ective coach – building on your mistakes, watching and learning from others, working with players and building them up. ‘To coach a deaf team in sign language is like coaching a hearing team by talking to them. However, as you get further up the coaching levels, more and more of the coaching is about demonstration, which means a deaf coach is merely a good coach.’

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