same school, different job

Technically my job hasn't change, and my title is still "English Language Assistant," but I no longer have any English classes. I follow around one class of first years (I say more or less equivalent to Freshman, but I think it would be more like seventh graders, since they don't have middle school, but do have a 2 year pre-professional program after secondary school) and help out in the music, math and history classes. So far its been pretty fun. The material, obviously, is much more varied than last year, and I'm enjoying the change. The past two weeks I've been helping to explain the planets ("Uranus" is really hard to pronounce!), the Solar System, basic algebra, factors, prime numbers, whole notes, half notes, etc.

The professors have done a pretty good job so far in their English speaking, but the class is probably not more than 50/50 Spanish/English for now. If it were more, I think the kids would give up trying to understand. I'm sure the amount of material we've covered so far is much less than the professors would like, but its really like giving two classes at once, since the class gets paused on a regular basis for me to explain something in English. Also, since I have the same kids everyday, rather than 3 different classes each day, I have almost all of their names memorized already, which makes me happy. I also still have a few out-of-class hours with the professors to prep for classes, help with their English homework from the Official School of Languages, work on conversation/pronunciation, etc.

I'm looking forward to starting my masters classes in a week or so, but still nervous about how I'm going to manage to be in two places at once when I need to go to class in the morning while I'm at work...heh. But the director at the high school has told me various times that they will be as flexible as possible and that he knows this is a really good opportunity for me. Awesome. So if all goes well, by the end of next September, I'll have a masters in translation and interpreting! And then I need to find a job... :)

Hope all is well in your worlds.