The air is damp. It is a scorching hot and cloudy day at Hotel Baxar, Pie de la Cuesta, Mexico. Droplets of sweat start dripping off my nose, both from the heat and the nerves of teaching a first class to a group of Spanish native speakers. The class is about to start in a minute or three. I peek over at Steve who is smiling to everyone entering our little teaching circle of chairs and making little jokes with each of them. He breaks the ice even before the class has started. Suddenly I realize, it must be true what they say about the Zwerink family: the talent to teach is anchored in their DNA.
Arriving extraordinarily early for Mexican standards, around fifteen minutes past three, the chefs, the handymen, the cleaning lady and the receptionists of Hotel Baxar one by one enter the teaching circle of chairs. The cobble stones squeak under their shoes and their shyness is yet to disappear. One of the chefs tries to get out of the class but hotel owner Chris persuades him to participate: “Of course you can do this, please just sit down and listen. That is all I ask of you”. For now, every single one is a student again. Many of them have not finished primary school and have gotten a job at Hotel Baxar thanks to their perseverance and willingness to work. This first lesson is a try-out for a dream Chris has called Baxar Academy. Chris is eager to invest in his personnel, offer them the ability to grow and develop. Learn English, finish primary or secondary or even college if they want to. All expenses paid by Baxar.
More and more foreign guests book at Baxar. Often they call by phone but don’t speak a word of Spanish, while the staff does not speak a word of English. Providing service and a pleasant stay to your guests is much easier if you speak their language. We think it is a brillant idea: help your personnel develop and simultaneously improve the service they can offer to your guests. We love to give the first lesson and inspire everyone with the fun of learning something.
Steven starts explaining in Spanish. How he did not speak a word of Spanish in January of this year and started learning the language by practicing and learning new words everyday. “Here I am, just as nervous as you, trying to explain you guys in Spanish, what the objective is of todays class. I make at least 5 errors in every sentence but I have already won your respect for trying, haven’t I?” Even if you make a lot of errors today, it is so much fun to learn something new, that is what we want to show you today. We are going to have fun! “And what you learn today, you can use in your daily work, how cool is that??”
We start very simple: “my name is….” what is your name?” and we let the group practice is groups of two. Quickly, it becomes a little more difficult: “where are you from?” en “where were you born?”. We wrote the sentences on a whiteboard for the group to remember how to say it. That morning, a great learning tool fell out of a tree: a mini-coconut that we now use in the group to get everyone in an active posture and actively participating in class. The group throws ball with the coconut and every time you catch the ball, you introduce yourself, explain where you are from and what you do for a living. It works fantastically! Almost everyone is participating and is laughing. The chef is the only one that does not really like to participate: he introduces himself in Spanish. Chris gives him the last push and then he starts to join in. What a respect I have for him, because he does not speak a word of English. Not a word! His body language speaks for itself. Every time the coconut has to be thrown to someone in the circle and chances are he has to catch it, his foot starts to nervously move around the cobblestones on the floor. Every time the coconut is thrown to someone else, a sigh of relief goes through him and you can see him relax.
We continue with the third exercise: “what is our job?”, “I am a…” again the coconut shows its user. The handyman catches the coconut and repeats: “I am a cleaning lady”, repeating after the cleaning lady in her introduction before him. Hilarious! The group cannot stop laughing. After two full hours of teaching, we end the lesson with several service oriented sentences: “Thank you for staying with us” and “We hope you have a pleasant stay”.
After ending the lesson, everyone comes over to hug us and we are drowned in thankfulness. Chris is overwhelmed and pretty surprised: “This is for the first time since the beginning of the season when we went wakeboarding with the team” and “everyone joined in and even helped each other find words!”. The pupils continue to practice their sentences learned the days after the class. How cool is that!? The droplets of sweat gulf down my spine. Stevens’ shirt is soaking wet. We look at each other. I know exactly what he thinks. We help people with what we know, we (dare to) make mistakes and try things we have never done before. That is why we chose the Digital Nomadz lifestyle!
Number 22 on our bucketlist is checked! ‘Teach English to people who need it’ #proud.
Check out the pictures made of our first class here.
