Introduction from the T4L Team…
Whether you are primarily a school teacher or a pro tennis coach or a coach volunteer, please read this document about coaching groups. Tennis 4 Learning uses the court (or gym or parking lot!), the game, and tennis skills to make learning other skills physical, visual, memorable and fun. The key to success is engagement — when tennis fun and exercise are engaging and seamless with learning academic and life skills, you will be successful as teachers and coaches!
Success in coaching is built on a complex combination of technical and interpersonal skills, tied together by motivational ability rooted in belief in individual and group achievement. (Wow .. . that’s a lot for one sentence!)
Coaching is a lifelong pursuit … the learning process is ongoing for part- and full-time coaches. The elements of group coaching include the elements of coaching individuals, plus the challenges of group dynamics. This outline is intended to provide a glimpse of the breadth of topics good coaches strive to master. It is not exhaustive – there’s more than this for sure! Skills in a subset of the topics listed below are essential to coaching success, whether you are a lead coach, an assistant, an organizer, a regular, or an occasional volunteer helper … and whether teaching beginners or more advanced players. For example, all coaches must have safety skills, “safe play” skills, basic on-court skills, positive attitude projection, and a basic understanding of optimal challenge and how to create it through progressions. Moreover, introductory coach training includes essentials, but not all the topics/elements listed here, and much can be gained through on-court apprenticing with lead coaches who understand that their role is to lead players and coaches and set a positive, inclusive, confident and enthusiastic tone by example.
Finally, the T4L team is a big fan of goals- and games-based learning (as compared with a more technical, structured, and repetition-based approach). Elsewhere on this website we call it “Athlete-Centered Coaching”. Properly-defined lesson goals and game play provide natural incentive for mastering fundamentals, and not only are games fun but also they promote the kind of “problem-solving” which engages creativity, discovery, and productive and memorable structural learning.
Coaching for Player & Group Success
- Fun, passion, actively engaged (as individuals), everyone engaged (as a group, inclusion)
- Sport Adoption Path: casual recreation to lifelong enjoyment
- Sport Advancement Path: basic skills, mastery, proficiency
- Group and individual growth, cohesion, sense of identity and team
- Physical fitness, wellness, and mental health benefits
- Tennis 4 Learning Programs using Tennis as a context for learning
- Life skills learning, character development, and personal growth in cooperative, group context
- Academic learning (both specific and parallel learning, learning how to learn)
Setting Expectations for Success
- Essentials expected of coaches and players
- Respect, positive attitude, effort, cooperative effort
- Communication, listening
- Addressing each other appropriately, by name, title
- Punctuality, attendance
- Hydration
- Safe Sport/Safe Play
- Physical and Mental/Emotional Safety
- All coaches and athletes involved/active/attentive
- Expected of coaches
- Leadership, preparation, lesson planning, sense of direction
- Knowledge of tennis skills, non-tennis athletic skills
- Knowledge of specific academic and life skills in Tennis-for-Learning programs
- Translation of knowledge into productive instructional and educational activities
- Creativity, personality, enthusiasm, positive vibe, fun
- Motivational skills, constructive/positive attitude projection
- Tracking and documenting progress, player development plan
- Watchfulness, awareness, and responsiveness to individual, group, and sub-group needs
- Anticipating and creating optimal challenge opportunities
Designing Group Activities for Success
- Optimal challenge activities based on progressions which take group diversity & range of skills into account
- Positively challenging (not daunting)
- Aspirational, with a sense of direction and what’s next
- Inclusive activities which foster teamwork and fellowship (sense of group, everyone is valued)
- Activities which creatively recognize all aspects of individual growth, improvement, achievement, and contribution to group success (not limited to technical skills)
- Free-play and player-initiated activity opportunities, group-initiated variations of activities, discovery
- Motivational, engaging activities which foster group cohesion and ownership of group practice and play
- Activities which encourage self-assessment and individual ownership of self-development plans
- Skill training activities which develop and reinforce essential tennis-specific techniques, patterns, and biomechanics
- Cross-training activities which develop athleticism and athletic diversity, agility, balance and balanced fitness
- Activities which impart knowledge of the sport/game of tennis, including historical and current information, and activities which encourage further independent discovery)
- Academic topical activities in Tennis 4 Learning programs
Group Coaching Lesson Planning: Elements of a (typical) Structured Training Session
- Set-Up, Check-In
- Thematic welcome (repeat the theme often, e.g. “Practice makes Perfect”, “Go Team”, ”Big Spin, Heavy Ball”)
- Warm-up activities
- Theme-reinforcing Skill & Drill activities
- Theme-reinforcing Games
- Theme-reinforcing Review & Celebrate (Cheer)
Note: “Themes” can be skill-based (e.g. stroke, technique, footwork), fitness-based, learning principle-based (e.g. “practice makes perfect”, “walk before you run”), life skill-based (teamwork, respect, decision-making, listening, negotiating), or simply fun (dancing, acting, celebrating a holiday or a tradition or an event)
Sport-Specific Tennis Coaching Skills
- Dead ball, live ball drills
- Progressions & Variations
- Soft/hard, slow/fast, low/high, short/long, spin/flat, static/dynamic, simple/complex, etc.
- Feeding skills
- Drill and Game setup skills
- Court equipment, teaching accessories, player positioning, etc.
- Cooperative/partner practice skills and progressions
- Footwork technique
- Swing technique (stroke-specific essentials)
- Athletic stance, hitting stance
- Racquets, strings, balls
- The physical court
- The scoring system, the game, rules, competition
- History, context
- Strategy, playing to strengths
- Mental skills
- Player assessment, levelling groups efficiently
Non-Tennis-Specific Athletic Coaching Skills
- Agility, balance, dexterity, speed, fitness
- Coordination, hand-to-eye, proprioception
- Strength, flexibility
- Biomechanics, ground force, leverage, eccentric plyometrics
- Throwing
- Swinging
- Acceleration, deceleration
- Knowledge of anatomy
- Diet, nutrition
Tennis 4 Learning (T4L) Programs (Additional considerations for Teachers, Pro Coaches, Volunteers)
Note: “Tennis 4 Learning” is a program targeted to elementary school children, utilizing tennis-related activities as opportunities for learning and reinforcing academic and life skills. T4L activities relate fun, engaging and visual problems & solutions to understanding otherwise-abstract concepts, principles, and skills.
- Lesson Plans and Lesson Structure are essential
- Target audience (age, ability), topic & scope must be clearly stated
- Research, preparation, fundamentals must be correct
- Setup, props, and tools
- What’s the tennis “hook” and how does the sport or the court or the gear support the learning opportunity?
- Discovery, game play, optimal challenge and progressions are key tools for success
Adaptive Coach Mindset
- Use your words .. vocabulary, Q&A approach to engagement
- Use your skills .. simple, slow, memorable
- Use your smile .. motivate, welcome
- Use your love for the game
- Believe in athlete Ability with a capital A .. individual achievement
- Believe in Inclusion with a capital I .. group achievement
- Expect a lot, get a lot!