First day of classes

Lucy, the other English teaching assistant arrived yesterday from the UK. We will be working together this entire year, assisting Maestra Mercedes and Maestro Jaime on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. We started today at 8am with Mercedes' class of five students preparing to teach English in high schools and studying for the Cambridge exam. Having such a small class size is really great for learning a second language. It can be intimidating and embarrassing to test out new vocabulary and practice complex grammar structures in front of a large group and having a trusting environment is ideal for learning a new language. The class is based on curriculum that uses British English and it's interesting to read the text and listen to the audio while focusing very acutely on the way they use language. I've never realized just how different English is in the U.S. from English in the U.K. The language of the curriculum is also quite rich, using a wide mix of interesting vocabulary and phrasing. I don't remember the audio tapes in my Spanish classes sounding so varied, although I also don't remember understanding them that well either.
Mercedes asked Lucy and I to explain the difference between journey, travel, trip and way. It was quite challenging, especially to do it on the fly. From now on, Mercedes will email us the lessons she wants us to prepare in advance, but asked us to give journey/travel/trip/way a go this morning so we could get our feet wet. We also tried to explain the reason why you say "when I was a tour guide" instead of "when I was being a tour guide". I really do love the nuances and subtleties of language and although my explanations weren't as smooth as I would have liked, I really enjoyed this first class and look forward to planning and teaching more lessons.
We had an afternoon break and returned to school at 2pm to observe in Jamie's class on grammar. It's based on comparing Spanish and English grammar and was quite interesting, at least for my inner grammar geek. We talked about grammatical units and parts of speech, seriously some of my favorite topics. I finished the day back with Mercedes in a beginner English class where I led a conversation group of about 9 students. I adore language and teaching and am thrilled to be teaching language to teachers. I had them introduce themselves and then talk about why they want to teach and witnessing them lose their initial inhibitions and start to trust the group enough to relax and have fun with English was extremely satisfying. Today was a good day.