Summary
Following on the work Simon did with FIBA on the development of the Referee Instructor Programme, Simon was invited to deliver teaching and learning to emerging referee instructors nominated by the national federations of France, Germany, Italy and Turkey. In total, over forty potential referee instructors were involved in the programme.
The programme is led by the Turkish Basketball Federation who, working with a local Turkish NGO, developed the bid which was successful in gaining funding from the European Union funded Eramus Plus Sport programme. This programme promotes inter country work promoting increasing youth involvement in sport.
The four federations were at different stages of evolution. France, for example, had over 600 instructors and Germany had over 100 whereas Italy and Turkey were not as advanced.
Approach
Simon delivered two sessions of teaching and learning as well as facilitating the development of technical content for the manual.
The first session, delivered in Rome in the late spring, gave the learners a basic understanding of teaching and learning in an adult environment. Although the sessions were delivered in English, Simon had to adapt his delivery for English as a second language speakers and wait for translations. The structure was broadly based on the ADL qualification. The learning was very practical and fully engaged people particularly those who had a preference for kinesthetic learning.
During the second training session, Simon led a number of sessions developing further teaching and learning, gaining feedback from delivery and also began to plan sessions that could be delivered by these instructors in future years.
Most of the extensive group work was in mixed country groups but the last session emerged into country by country planning which proved most useful as implementation is the critical next step.
Outcome
From the two sessions, the forty referee instructors have a greater knowledge of teaching and learning and how to apply this into the delivery of referee instructor training. The Federations have sought to develop a manual that will act as a compendium of the sessions and also serve as a manual for refereeing instructing.
