After School Badminton: Fourth Week!

This monday (22nd of November) was the fourth week of the after school badminton. As usual, we split into 2 groups and taught them fundamental techniques of badminton.

As I’d planned, I taught my group how to hit a forehand drop shot. First of all, I showed them how to hit a forehand drop shot. This is perhaps one of the most difficult technique out of serving, forehand overhead clear and forehand drop shot, so I showed many times so that everybody can see how to hit it. After that, I put then into pairs to practice. As I’d imagined, nobody could hit it properly and I showed them demonstrations several times with some advice.  After about 20 minutes of this practice, some of them were starting to get something out of it and at the end, most of them were somehow able to hit it (not proper one). However, I believe they need more practice to be able to hit forehand drop shot properly because it requires more time and training compared to forehand overhead clear or serving.

Since there’s only 3 weeks left till the end of block two, Mo and I’ve decided to do a small tournament. This will start from next week and it will be a doubles tournament. If there’s still some time after this tournament ends, we will also do a singles tournament as well.

Stretching before playing badminton

Showing how to hit a forehand drop shot

An Update on Art Room Community Service

As I’d stated as one of my goals for this semester, I’m planning to create a Community Service Activity, that is aimed to organize the art room and make it a better environment for students. Since there is about a month left till the end of the semester, I’m now going to start planning this so that this can be an official Community Service Activity for the second semester.

First of all, I’ve asked Mo to be the vice leader and since she’s willing to be, the vice leader is now chosen! The next step is to go to the Art Room, talk to Ms. Barnett and make a list of things that need to be done and improved in the Art Room, so that students can draw, paint, etc in a better environment. I’m planning to do this next week sometime during lunch or after school. I will post another update once this task has been completed.

The official name for this Community Service Activity will be decided later on.

After School Badminton: Third Week!

This monday (15th of November) was the third week of the after school badminton. Mo was unable to turn up, so Mr. De Silva took some group of students and I took the rest of the students.

As I’d planned, I taught them how to hit a forehand overhead clear shot. First, I showed them some demonstrations and gave some tips to successfully do this technique. After that I put them into pairs and let them practice. At first, many of them had difficulties in hitting the shuttle high and long but as they practiced and I gave more advice, they showed an improvement and most of them were able to hit it properly at the end.

After about 15 to 20 minutes of this practice, I let them play freely until 3:45 p.m.

Next week, I’m planning to teach them the forehand drop shot, as this is another good technique to be able to use and is an effective way in manipulating and giving a pressure to an opponent. Again, I’ll spend about 15-20 minutes teaching and letting them practice this technique and after that, I’ll let them play on their own.

After School Badminton: Second Week!

This monday (8th of November) was the second week of the after school badminton. Although everybody said they want to just play badminton for fun and relaxation, Mr. De Silva, Mo and I decided that we’ll still teach them something because we want them to learn more about badminton from this activity. However, it won’t be something serious and will be something very basic, such as how to hold the racquet properly, how to serve etc.

So today, we first split the students into 2 groups, so that Mo and I can teach them something for the first 20 minutes or so. Today I taught my group the proper way of holding the racket and the forehand/backhand short serve and forehand/backhand long serve.

I first showed them a demonstration so that they can get an idea of how to hold the racket and serve. After that, I’ve put them into pairs so that they can practice what I’ve taught them. As I’ve expected, most of them weren’t able to hold the racket properly and do the proper long and short serve but I hope that they’ve gained more knowledge and absorbed these techniques, as they are the fundamentals of badminton.

Next week, I’m planning to teach them how to hit a forehand overhead clear shot, as it is one of the basic badminton techniques. I’m not going to teach them the backhand overheard clear shot, as this is much harder and in addition, I personally haven’t mastered this technique yet.

Managing the Score Board 2

Today there was a basketball match between OSC and another International School at OSC. Like last week, I was in charge of  noting down the scores, who scored, who fouled, etc and I was the assistant of Ravin, who managed the score board. This the second time I’ve done this job and unlike time, everything went much smooth because I knew what to do. In addition to the criteria which I’ve covered last week, I’ve covered another criterion, which is

• Increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

I feel a lot more confident in doing this job and I hope to do it again if there’s another basketball match at OSC in the future.

Picture of myself writing down the scores

An update on Sunflower Project

Yesterday, the same group of children came to learn swimming. It’s been a while since they’ve come to learn (because of a week holiday, heavy rain the next week etc), so we’ve first told them to put their faces under the water and blow bubbles for 10 seconds, so that they’ll get used to the water.

After that, we’ve told them to swim to the 2nd line and we’ve observed each of them, gave some advice so that they can swim better and we showed some demonstrations as well, so that they can see what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong.

Towards the end, we’ve taught the arm movements for the free-style. At the moment, all they’re doing is just practice the arm movements while standing so that they get used to the movements, but from next week onwards, we’ll start teaching them how to do free-style with legs.

For the last 20 minutes or so, we’ve played water-polo and had some enjoyment. This is the time where everybody could get to know each other. I’ve already made several friends from teaching and playing water-polo and it is really enjoyable to teach them and play with them, despite the communication difficulties.

Most of the children are showing some improvements (some have made a big improvement but some haven’t made much of an improvement). However, by December, I’m certain that all of them will be able to swim one width of the pool, which is about 10 meters long. We still have several weeks before the end of semester 1, therefore we’ll come up with plans so that we can use the time efficiently and do some productive work so that they can improve in their swimming.

After School Badminton: First Time!

Today was the first time of the after school badminton. We were informed that 4 courts will be set up, but there were 8 courts set up, so we can now have 16 people in this after school activity.

First of all, we spent a few minutes stretching and doing some warm ups, as it is important to do so before playing badminton.  

After that, we’ve asked the students if they want to learn badminton or just play badminton for fun and relaxation. We were hoping that about the half of them would want to learn and the other half wanting to play for fun and relaxation, however, it turned out that everybody wanted to just play badminton for fun and enjoy as much as possible.

Therefore today, all we did was pair students up and let them play freely. Occasionally we told them to find a new partner, etc and towards the end, we played doubles.

To summarize, today’s badminton was just to know what everybody wanted out of this after school activity and also for Mr. De Silva, Mo and myself to learn who can play fairly well, who needs some more improvements, etc, so that we can come up with plans for the future. I will soon make another post regarding the plans for the next week onwards.