Teaching in many languages!

For the past 3 weeks I have been teaching 4-5 days a week again and I am loving it even though it throws many challenges my way. I wanted to find a job when I got here but when the opportunity came up for me to help out a family here I felt like it was right and it was the kind of job I was looking for, even though this one is not paid monetarily (Althugh, sometimes I get chocolate!). So here's the story. There is a women here from Brazil named Hilaide along with her two kids, Bruna (15) and Mattheus (12). Her husband is back in Brazil working and looking after their house. Her kids don't know any German or I should say didn't know any German as they are now able to speak a little and understand some too. The school here in Fritzlar would not accept them because of this and so if they are not going to school, they would have to go back to Brazil. A way around that was for them to get help with their German and for them to continue learning other subjects in their grade level.

This is where I come in. I have been teaching them mostly math (because I love math) as well as a little English and more importantly German. Once they have a better handle on the German language, they can attend school here. I guess I should mention that all of their work books are in Portuguese and that they do not understand English well at all. So, I find myself speaking German, Spanish, English, Portuguese and even a little French during each of my lessons. We laugh, grab our head in frustration and use Portuguese-German then German-English dictionaries often. The kids are awesome and we are having a lot of fun learning together but they need to get into the school system soon or they still might have to go back to Brazil. That would be very hard on Hilaide and I am hoping I can help enough that that will not have to happen.