Team Handball

The essential challenge in this book is to teach while bringing back the joy of playing (Olympic) handball by shaping game rules and game playing possibilities, without changing its essence, in progressive stages.

Written for PE teachers and/or coaches, it provides a path to a Handball Game-Based Approach aimed at engaging and developing skilled handball beginners and/or players with strong tactical sense.

In this approach, by providing a skeleton of interlinked stages, we intend to help educators to design a clear direction in their work, anchored by learning priorities and development outcomes. Through a logical sequence of integrated and interlinked basic game forms, the tactical complexity and technical-motor demands of the game are shaped and introduced on a step-by-step basis. In each stage, the typical game problems are examined and, then, the teaching focus, contents, skills and outcomes are outlined in a pedagogical order. A detailed and comprehensive set of tasks is also presented according to each stage of learning that should be modified as required by the teaching/coaching context and learners' needs.

To help the educator, especially those who are not quite familiar with the sport, abundant illustrations and lots of tips and practical recommendations are provided.

The reader is also invited to know more about the handball rules and its unique tactical essence and how to shape it to make the handball experience inclusive, effective, exciting and challenging.

Author Luisa Estriga (PhD) is an Assistant Professor at the Sports Faculty (Porto University, Portugal) and is currently a member of the IHF Handball@School Working Group. A dynamic coach and lecturer, she has taught extensively in actions for teachers and coaches all over the world - from Latvia to Ghana, from Trinidad and Tobago to Turkey, from Cape Verde to Seychelles, from Poland to Chile, etc.