Badminton Unit:  Lesson 1.
Equipment: 1 badminton racquet per student, at least 1 shuttle/birdie per student.
Duration: 45 minutes.
Facility: Gymnasium.

NOTE: As you're reading this, be sure to modify to fit your students' age and skill level, this is a general guideline to teach a large group of beginners.

Instant Activity:  tape papers on walls around the gym as targets, ask students to throw birdies at it, see if they can hit the target. (badminton forehand stroke is similar to the throwing pattern)

Introduction:  Introduce the sport of badminton, a quick history and a few interesting trivias might get the students interested: (fastest racquet sport and 2nd most participated in the world, behind soccer)

Teach/Demo:  The basis badminton grip – the handshake grip (known to advance player as the forehand grip, very similar to the tennis’s continental grip)

How to teach this: have students sit in a semi-circle so they can see you, ask for a volunteer to help demonstrate.
Ask the helper to shake your hand, while shaking, ask the helper to closer his/her eyes, release the grip, with his/her eyes closed, place the racquet handle and ask the helper to shake the racquet as if he/she was shaking your hand. Then have the helper open his/her eyes to look at the grip and remember that grip.
Now, pair students up and have them do the same (validate their feelings, tell them you know that it may feel uncomfortable at first, but once they get use to it, it’ll help them improve faster.

Practice: With the shake hand grip, assign each student to hit/bounce the birdie softly in the air. ( be sure to walk around and provide positive feedback as well as corrective.
Provide enough time for students to practice, see if they’re into it or if they’re bored. (10-15 minutes)
Feedback examples, (“good job using the correct grip, good job tracking the target”)

Challenge:  Ask the students "When I say GO, see how many times you can hit the birdie before it hits the ground" (or whatever you want to say to challenge them )

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Teach/Demo:  The overhead forehand clear:   (if you’re not familiar with badminton, it looks similar to a tennis serve without the jump)

How to teach:  Again, ask for a demo, hold the racquet frame and stick the butt of the racquet up, high enough to force the helper to reach and hit the butt of your racquet with their frame.  (this might damage the racquet string )
When everyone gets to do that for about 20 times, make it more challenging.
Have one person throw birdies/shuttles, and have the other person try to hit it, and then alternate roles. Have the hitter hits towards a wall so they won’t waste time retrieving the bird.

Challenge: "See how many time you can hit the shuttle without missing", ask to see who did more than 5, 10, 15, etc, ask a few successful students to share what was helpful to them, and assign students to practice again using those tips.

Close:  Be sure to validate how frustrating it is to miss the birdie and that it’s not fun that they didn’t get to play the game. Reasure the students that they'll get to play as soon as they can hit a tossed birdie consistantly. Ask them what’s the grip call, and why it is important to practice.

If you have any comments or questions regarding this lesson, please feel free to contact me. I hope that this is useful to you.