If you had to coach 20 students, but there were only 5 tables, how would you do it?

For warm up, you can have 4 students per table doing straight/cross forehand/backhands, but what about after that?

I'm looking for ideas or techniques to help the students stay concentrated while they aren't hitting the ball.

For example, with multiball if I have one student feeding, one student hitting and one student collecting the balls, the moment I add a fourth, they tend to end up talking with the person picking up the balls. Then when the multiball session is over, not enough balls have been collected. Then the ones who were hitting and feeding the ball end up just waiting and talking because it technically wasn't their job to pickup the balls.

With other styles of practice, say third ball practice, only two students can use a table at once, so the other two end up talking, not concentrating and sometimes not practicing at all as the other two end up practicing the whole time (no rotation happens because they're talking).

Same with match practice.

Does anyone have any tried techniques/activities for people who are waiting to do to keep their attention?

I've tried asking any waiting students to do shadow strokes, but of course, no one really wants to do it so it never works out.

I also have an idea to get them assigned to police some role, like pointing out one specific thing the person hitting the ball is doing whenever it happens (like fixing finger grip, stroke start or finish positions, etc), but I haven't tried this yet.

By the way, I can't choose the students. I have what I've been given. I just have to try and make the best of it. None of them are against improving, they just lack the discipline and concentration to practice effectively (probably because they're about 12 years old). 

Thanks!

2) You could split the group in 2, and have half do off table work like shadow stroke, and fitness etc while the other half is at the tables. 

3)  You could make a circuit where there is an off the table item between each item requiring tables.

For example: 

Position 1 - Service practice

Position 2 - Shadow stroke 

Position 3 - multiball

Position 4 - situps

Position 5 - forehand to forehand consistency drill

Position 6 - Sprints

Position 7 - backhand to backhand consistency drill

Position 8 - agility ladder

Position 9 - 3rd ball attack drill

"None of them are against improving, they just lack the discipline and concentration to practice effectively (probably because they're about 12 years old)."

Well, we have a number of players 12 and under who have enough discipline and concentration to play at over 2000 level. 10 year old Aziz is 2074.

Here is one of our students at 6 years old:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyjIF9jHvGg" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyjIF9jHvGg

If he has the discipline and concentration to practice effectively at 6, your students can do so at 12.

@Egghead We don't need to keep it 4 to a table, so that sounds like a great idea.

@alphapong Lots of great ideas there. The practice area is quite small, so it's going to be hard to fit all of that in, but you've given me a lot of ideas to work with. 

I should probably clarify about the lack of discipline and concentration. Since I work in a Japanese school, all students are required to attend a club after school for up to 2 hours a day. These are just the students who chose table tennis. Their circumstances vary, but not many join because they really wanted to play table tennis. The way the students behave is a little more like how students behave in PE class when they're playing some sport outside (at least how it was for me when I was a student). It's a slow process, but I am slowly getting them in order. Another problem is that I only see them once or twice a week, but they practice 5 days a week. The other teachers generally don't maintain order as much as I would like (they also have no table tennis experience).

P.S. That 6 year old looks great!! Good job there.

The book is available from Paddle Palace, the ITTF, and (I think) Amazon. Link to the book at Paddle Palace   http://www.paddlepalace.com/ITTF-IPTTC-Level-1-Coaching-Manual/productinfo/MMBB/" rel="nofollow - LINK (might not work, but I tried!)

bes

When they are just starting, we give them Mambo-H.

Aziz #1 Boys 10 & under            Kai #3 Boys 12 & under    Avery #6 Boys 11 & under

Well since we are a Joola Club, I can offer the following. All 3 boys in our Elite Development Program use Joola Maxx rubber, all 3 boys are currently top 10 ranked US born for their age.

Avery used to play with some kind of obscure Japanese brand with an insect as a logo. I think the blade was $400 and the rubbers were $75 each. He changed to Joola equipment just prior to Nationals (he says the Emotion is much better than his old $400 blade) and he has shot up more than 400 points.

So in my opinion Joola rubbers and blade are essential. Is it even possible to play well with anything else?

Disclaimer – If you don’t have a sense of humor, are of less than average intelligence, or do not have solid written English comprehension please disregard this post as you will likely misinterpret it.

I'd love to one day checkout where you work, alphapong. It looks like a great environment.