Developing Self-learners
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The document discusses developing self-learners through game-based coaching and communication. It argues that coaches should create game-like training activities that require players to make decisions under pressure, rather than repetitive drills. Developing a shared "football language" of calls that refer to decisions made in games can help players communicate and think for themselves. Coaches should focus on individual player development and see their role as facilitating independent learning rather than directing instructions. This will produce players who are skilled decision-makers and self-learners.
Developing Self-learners
- 1. Developing Self-Learners through Game-calls and Game-Based Coaching Gérard Jones, MSc The importance of practice-design Prior to discussing communication, the foundations of practice-design mustbe established. The question is do coaches know what a great player looks like? Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Xavi, Iniesta, Scholes are a few obvious names but it is essential as a coach to identify what it is about these players that makes them great. If you cannotexplain this then you don’t know what you’reworking towards. Withoutthis knowledge, a coach will be unable to providethe essential skills that aid players to attain greatness. Having this vision of what a coach is working towards willhelp produce the next generation of players that excite and entertain, across all playing positions. We live in an era now where football has seen so many changes in the game, with goalkeepers like Neuer demonstrating high levels of technical excellence, bravery and skill that perhaps not many keepers beforehim have demonstrated on the world stage. So how do we develop these players? Well whatwe don’t do is train them using lines and drills where they only makedecisions in an unchanging environment. Unfortunately football for many years in England and in most countries around the world has been shadowed by a belief that techniques must be mastered firstbefore progressing into game-play situations (Cassidy, Jones, & Potrac, 2009; Williams, Yates, & Ford, 2007) which only produces players that make decisions (action) with no perception skills due to the environmentnot changing, thus creating ineffective game players. Expert Footballers use their knowledgeof situational probabilities to predict wherethe player and ball is likely to go next (Ford, Yates, & Williams, 2010) by using their superior knowledgeto control their eye movement to seek and pick up specific pieces of information needed to respond quickly to the situation (Williams & Ford, 2008) based on
- 2. posturalorientation. This process requires players to audit a rapidly changing and randomenvironment in order to know what appropriateresponsecan be made (Williams, 2000; FutureGame, 2010), thereforethe morethe players are exposed to environments that requirethem to think about what is happening and could happen in a changing environment, the better the learning experience will be for the player (Cartwright, 2008). Put simply, players make decisions on time and space limitations through full or part opponentpressure, thereforein order to develop better decision makers with skill we need to place players in environments that allow them to make decisions under these conditions throughoutthe wholeof their development years (Cartwright, 2008; Jones, 2015; Williams & Hodges, 2005). “A coach who teaches his players the correct techniqueusing special, frequently repeated drills is neglectingto teach them why, when and where they need to use technique to deal with a given game situation” (Wein, 2004, p.5). The solution is for coaches to create training practices that offer direction, choice, challenge, competition, and opponent pressurewith a purpose(Jones, 2015) wherethe practice constraints such as the area-size, the gradualincrease of opposition players and the focus of the activity can be manipulated to bring about different decisions and player solutions. Players will also find the practices more enjoyablethan they would lines-drills (Renshaw, Oldham, & Bawden, 2012; Vallerand, 2004) as they practices demonstrate ‘play’ in them for game-realism. What is play? Play is self-chosen and self-directed. Itis something the players want to do as it is not something they havebeen ‘made’ to do, therefore it is fun. Play allows for freedom to make decisions and is an activity in which the means are more valued than the end (Cote, Baker, & Abernethy, 2007). In order for players to havethe opportunity to practice how the coach wants them to play, by making decisions on time and space, the coach needs to let them haveenough time ‘playing’ the
- 3. game. Often coaching involves long lectures, the coach stopping the practice every minute and only coaching mistakes. This isn’t enjoyablefor players and fails to give them enough practice time to ‘practice playing the game’. Play and Practice are two vital components to coaching future great players, because you can’t achieve anything without the other. There has to be a balance of the two, which is why Play-Practicemethods of teaching have been found to be usefulin developing decision makers as they are often delivered in games or game-like activities whereplayers learn in a fun environment (Launder, 2001). What traits are needed to empower decision makers with skill? Creativity! Coaches who place pressureon players to performwell on tasks that are mentally habitual meaning non-changing and repetitive like a line-drill type practice, induce a non-playfulstate that may improve performanceon the task but worsen performanceon tasks that requirecreativity, conscious decision making and learning of new skills in a changing environment (Gray, 2008). Clearly footballis the latter. “With decision making you need to let it evolve and grow” (Rene Meulensteen) Communication is Vital Within the practice design and environment, players will receive feedback on performance. This is the mostcritical aspectof coaching as mentioned in the highly regarded Soccer-Communication Book “Let’s Talk Soccer:Using game-calls to develop communication and decision making in football” is the ability of the coach enthuseplayers to communicate to each other in a way that paint’s pictures in the minds of the players on whatto do, when and why. What this helps achieve is players who can play ahead of themselves (Play in the future) with increased anticipation and responseskills. Communication is as Sullivan (1993) suggests‘themostcritical element in the success of sporting teams’ due to there being “a positivecorrelation between enhanced interpersonal communication skills and higher levels of team performance” (p.90). Theproblem however is that players now rely more on the voice of the coach than their own
- 4. brain! With coaches doing mostof the talking in training and in games, shouting instructions on what to do, whereto go and when. Instead weshould be developing the players ‘inner voice’ so that they understand what to do, when and why. The game is the assessmentof the learning that’s taken place during the week, therefore as coaches we should be more observers during thegame to see what has been performed well and what needs to be improved further. How often do coaches use jargon or fancy buzz words which confusethe players, and haveno relevance to the game-style of how they wantthe team to play? I would argue very often! What we need to do is create a football language specific to our club identity, game-style and vision for how we want to develop the future player! Solutions Football language Coaches must usewords that directly link to the team’s game-styleso that when used with players, they instantly understand whatyou mean, when and why. These words (game-calls) arenot only words you use, but the concept is for the coach to ‘say less but achieve more’ with players speaking morethan the coach by communicating to each other. For example, if the player can’t play forward, he may shout“Start-again” to his teammate which instantly tells his teammate on the ball that there may be a risk going forward butthe opportunity to play backwards and retain possession is available in order to go forwards. This method helps create independent thinking footballers that can make decisions with skill in responseto the changing environmentthrough unity not separation. What is the relevance to ‘practice-design’? Game-calls are game-specific words that make reference to decisions that can be made only in game-situations therefore the best way to teach game-calls and consequently game-understanding is to involve players in game-like activities (Jones, 2015). The words that can be used can relate to all aspects of football performance, from “Press”, “No-turn” through to “Play-round”, “Balance” and “Two’s” with many more! These are examples of one or two words which the players say to each
- 5. other in order to retain or regain possession of thefootball. What does ‘Balance’ or ‘Drive& slide’ mean? Unless the coach shows theplayers when to usethese terms and how they relate to the game-style they won’tknow. Self-learners Players, who are empowered to make decisions and learn by doing, will become better thinkers and reflectors, and therefore better at finding solutions to problems on the pitch without having to look at the coach for the answers all the time. The future player will be a great ‘self-learner’ meaning they direct their learning by themselves, becoming highly skilled at self-talk, reflection, communication and action, all skills that are paramountto playing football successfully (Jones, 2015). This willsee the role of the coach, like Mourinho, Guardiola, and Wenger et al. becoming more ‘facilitators’ of knowledgerather than directors, with their role as the coach in the modern and future game as we are seeing now become more of a ‘significantother’ (Vygotsky, 1978). Mental models It’s all about pictures!The mental pictures (models) of knowledgewhich players can draw upon during games in order to respond appropriately to visualcues are vital ingredients to the success of sporting teams. The best way to develop these mental models are by encouraging players to talk to each other through useof game-calls as these ‘trigger-words’ help the player develop these mental images related to game-scenarios. Theonly way this can be achieved properly is by coaches programming their work over a period of time, specific to each individual player’s needs. Coaches need to know their players (learners) in terms of their strengths and areas for development, and design individual-specific programmes for each player to maximize their strengths. Coaches should see every player as an individual- project.
- 6. We can’t develop highly skillful, self-learners who drivetheir learning onto advanced levels without acknowledging the importance of ‘individualism’. This is wheremy belief about football and how it should be played links to whatI see when I describe whata great player is! As famous Youth Coach John Cartwright explained “Footballisn’t simply a team game, it’s aboutindividual’scombining where necessary” (Cartwright, 2008) thereforethefundamental importancefor all coaches is to develop ‘Individualism’ in every players by encouraging dribbling, skill, ball mastery and passing variations. Players likeMessiand Ronaldo are excellent self-learners; they drive their learning by a hunger to want to be the best they can be, committing hours and hours of practice to maximizing their strengths. By underpinning our coaching methods with innovative methods of communication (FutureGame, 2010) such as Game-calls, wewill see an increased level of team cohesion, understanding, skilland unity towards the ‘transcendence’ stageof knowledgewhereby the decisions players makebecome more autonomous (instinctive) with each other. Each of these topics are discussed in more detail in my book “Let’s Talk Soccer” wherethere are practical resources and session ideas on how to develop communication in order to create the next generation of ‘independent-thinking footballers’ who are great self- learners.
- 7. References Cartwright, J. (2008). Footballfor the Brave. M Press (Media) Ltd. Cassidy, T., Jones, R.L. and Potrac, P. (2009). Understanding sports coaching: The social, culturaland pedagogicalfoundationsof sportspractice. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Cote, J., Baker, J., & Abernethy, B. (2007). Practiceand play in the development of sportexpertise. In R.Eklund & G. Tenenbaum (Eds.), Handbook of Sport Psychology, pp.184-202. Ford, P.R., Yates, I. and Williams, A.M. (2010). An analysis of practice activities and instructional behaviours used by youth soccer coaches during practice: Exploring the link between science and application. Journalof SportsSciences, 28, pp. 483– 495. Gray, P. (2008). Freedomto learn. The roles of play and curiosity as foundations for learning. Psychology Today. Jones, G.E. (2015). Let’s Talk Soccer: Using Game-calls to Develop Communication & Decision Making in Football. Bennion Kearney. Launder, A.G. (2001). Play practice: The gamesapproach to teaching and coaching sports. Renshaw, I., Oldham, A. R., & Bawden, M. (2012). Nonlinear pedagogy underpins intrinsic motivation in sports coaching. The Open Sports Sciences Journal, 5, pp. 88-99. Sullivan, P. A. (1993). Communication skills training for interactive sports. The SportPsychologist, 7, pp. 79-91. The Future Game. (2010). TheFootballAssociation’s Technical Guide to Young Player Development. The Football Association: London. Vallerand, R. J. (2004). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in sport. Encyclopedia of applied psychology, 2, pp. 427-435.
- 8. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). "Chapter 6: Interaction between learning and development". Mind in society: the developmentof higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 79–91. Wein, H. (2004). Developing GameIntelligence in Soccer. Chapter 1: Introduction: How doesa soccer player’sintelligence manifest itself on the field, pp. 5-12. Reedswain. Williams, A. M. and Ford, P. R. (2008). Expertiseand expert performancein sport. InternationalReview of Sportand Exercise Psychology, 1, pp.4–18. Williams, A. M. and Hodges, N. J. (2005). Practice, instruction and skillacquisition: Challenging tradition. Journalof SportsSciences, 23, pp. 637–650. Williams, A.M. (2000). Perceptualskillin soccer: Implications for talent identification and development. Journalof SportsSciences, 18, pp. 737-740. Williams, A.M., Yates, I., & Ford, P.R. (2007). Structuring practicefor effective learning: Are we failing our current generation of aspiring young players? In-sight: The Football Association CoachesAssociation CoachesMagazine, Spring, pp. 50– 56.
- 9. About the Author Gérard Jones, MSc is currently completing the FA UEFA A Licence and FA Advanced Youth Award, holds a Master’s degree in Performance Coaching and is a Qualified Teacher with over 10 years coaching experience working with players from around the world. Gérard is a former Director of Coaching at Arsenal Soccer Schools, having also worked as an Academy Coach from U7s-U16s at Rochdale AFC. Gérard currently works as a full- time Academy Coach at RIASA with Bradford City FC as an U21s Reserve Coach.