I have always found that teaching breaststroke kick can be very challenging with new swimmers. Of course there are always those who naturally turn the ankles out, then it's easy to teach a good breaststroke kick. If you have taught young swimmers before you know that there are always those few who really have difficult time learning this skill.
I always start basic. Try to teach them with learn the ankle position in the setup of the kick. Then it is teaching the motion of the kick by moving the heels: up, out, and around. Emphasizing the backwards force during the around, and not including the out motion during the backwards force phase of the kick.
Only some kids grasp the kick at this point. I then try to tell them to spread their toes on the setup and during the force portion of the kick. I got this from Steve Haufler, and this method has worked really well, but some kids still don't get the spreading of the toes.
After the swimmer has done the kick wrong, and you have also been doing some other kicks in your practices; some have realized what it feels like to push water. My newest thing I've been using is having the swimmer try to only push water with the bottom of their feet, and never push with the top of the foot. I did this on accident the other day, but it worked for some of my swimmers who had trouble of being consistent legal breaststroke kickers. They surprised me that they could feel the difference in pushing with the bottom of their feet and the top of the foot, and being relatively new to the sport.
The other battle is with "diamond kicks." This is when the swimmer makes a diamond with their legs pushing their knees outward and their heels stay together as they bring their heels "up." I battle this with the basic breaststroke kick with a buoy. They'll hate it, but it will begin to teach them proper setup of the kick.
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