Picture yourself sitting on a golf cart being driven through the bowels of a ginormous cement factory in the middle of the northern Mexican desert. You get to a section of portable trailers, jump off the cart and climb to a second story “classroom.”
It is dusk.
A few minutes later a group of about 15 engineers dressed in faded blue coveralls with their hard hats in hand filter in and squeeze themselves into a chair around the conference table that’s one size too big for the room.
It starts off awkward. No one wants to raise their hand. No one wants to practice pronunciation in front of their peers lest they get it wrong. It’s weird enough that their English teacher is a 23 year old female in this very macho part of the country. We’re in cowboy/frontier territory after all.
And yet, within an hour I have them all singing Cat Stevens songs at the top of their lungs along to a CD player I’ve brought with me.
I couldn’t make this up if I tried.
Back in 2003 I worked as an administrator for a private school while living in Mexico. But with very little to do in the evenings in the large industrial town where I lived, I began moonlighting as an English teacher. Working at the Cemex factory was one of the places I’d go on a weekly basis, and having my students sing songs in English was one of the teaching strategies required of me by the company I contracted for.
Specifically, the songs we had them sing most of the time were Morning Has Broken by Cat Stevens and Chiquitita by ABBA. It would start out as a listening exercise where I’d play the song line by line and they’d have to fill in blanks on a handout. Then we’d talk about the meaning of words they didn’t know, and at the end I would rewind and have them sing the whole song. Every week the song and the meaning would become more familiar for them.
I cannot begin to tell you how completely awkward and hilarious and amazingly transformative this was.
Often I could barely hear their voices in the beginning but once they felt more comfortable, they became louder, cared less about whether they were singing correctly, and eventually just let her rip.
Every new song I introduced would induce blank stares. But within a few weeks they’d be asking for repeats. As in, we’d sing the song and they’d ask me to rewind it so we could all sing it together again.
A room full of weary Mexican cement engineers. Belting out ABBA.
The sheer joy they would get from singing together at the end of the day was something that’s forever burned in my memory.
Years later when I attempt something that’s awkward or out of my comfort zone (ahem…public speaking) I always think of them. I remember that simplest of lessons: that awkward is always temporary. That the magic happens when we step outside of our comfort zone. And that it’s only going to get more fun as I lean in and let go.
That sounds like great fun – if only you had video! I can well imagine though, the guys on our shopfloor at work used to get pretty loud back when we were aloud radios.
This came at exactly the right time *ahem public speaking* 😉 I absolutely agree – stepping out of my comfort zone lately has led to the most AMAZING changes in my life. And once the awkwardness/discomfort pass, it’s amazing how you can look back and say, “Yup. I did that and I survived.” You know in hindsight it’ll be all good. Sometimes you need the reminder in the moment that it will be too. Thanks! *big hugs*
I love this story! Sometimes our inhibitions stop us from doing things that are important (learning a new skill) and/or good for us and fun (singing out loud)- helping them get passed these inhibitions, you gave them so much more than English skills!