Background: Physical education teachers often use the player-coach dyad in individual opposition sports so that students can obtain information on their actions and then better regulate them. This type of work also develops methodological and social skills. However, the task of observing a partner often poses problems for failing students, who tend to reject it. Purpose: Failing students are known to develop an emotional and meaningful relationship to knowledge. We therefore investigated how a "scholastic form of practice" of badminton might be used to encourage these students to accept and invest in the task of observing their partners. We also evaluated the impact of this investment on the acquisition of motor and methodological skills, as well as the conditions conducive to effective reciprocal peer tutoring in badminton. Participants and setting: Our work focussed on two first-year classes in a French secondary school (Marseilles) with a majority of failing students, i.e. students with academic and behavioural problems. Each class was composed of 16 students, approximately 12 years old, who had never practised badminton. Research design: Each class practised a nearly identical form of badminton during six lessons. Only the relationship between the players and observers differed. The observers had to transcribe the nature of the points scored by the players on a worksheet and then give the players feedback about their performance during coaching sequences. In the "coach" class, the player and his or her observer were teammates: the scores of their respective matches were added together for a total score. In the "observer" class, the player and observer had no special relationship. Data collection: Data were collected on a detailed observation worksheet by an expert observer who identified the parts of the court in which players scored. These results were then compared with the data collected by the students. In addition, all coaching sequences were filmed. Data analysis: The progress made by the two classes in terms of motor and methodological skills was compared between a pre-test and a post-test session using two nonparametric tests: the Wilcoxon test and the Mann-Whitney U test. Findings: The results showed that "coach" class students were much more invested in the observation activity than those of the "observer" class, and their motor and methodological achievements were notably higher. Conclusions: The meaning attributed by failing students to dyad work is dependent on how the work is actually structured by the teacher. The creation of conditions for interaction between students is thus an integral part of the scholastic form of practice built by the physical education teacher. (Contains 1 table and 3 figures.)