I provide services in the areas mentioned from home or at home, as my mobility is somewhat limited. I grew up bilingual (Spanish-English) as my father worked in Honduras for 50 years, although I was educated in the United States and Europe. I first attended school at the Newman School in New Orleans from Kindergarten through 8th grade, followed by one semester at La Chatelainie, Gstaad, Switzerlan
d, in a program that included 3 hours of French a day, in addition to the regular high school curriculum. The French teacher was a native speaker who spoke no English. I then returned to Newman for a year, followed by a year and a half at Lakewood High School in the Denver, Colorado, area, and my senior year spent at the National Cathedral School for Girls where I graduated. I graduated from Sweet Briar College with a A.B. in Modern Languages (French, Spanish and German), and the Certificat de la Langue Française - 1er Degré - earned at the Sorbonne during my Junior Year in France. (I had enough hours for a minor in Art, but Sweet Briar did not grant credit for a minor if one had a triple major, as I did.) After graduation, I worked "au pair" in the Netherlands for several months, before returning to Washington, D.C. where I worked as a free-lance translator on a project translating map specifications for a Department of Defense project mapping South America. I then worked for a year in the Translation Section of the U.S. Patent Office, classifying and translating foreign patents and passing a U.S. Department of Agriculture course in Technical German, before returning to graduate school where I earned a M.S.T. (Master of Science in Teaching) from The American University in Washington, D.C. My area of concentration was French, and my specialization in my education courses (for the secondary school level) was in Mental Health in Schools. I completed my Student Teaching at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Maryland. I taught French and German for two years at John T. Baker Junior High School, and after I married, I continued both in free-lance translating and interpreting, as well as teaching, sometimes as a volunteer, and sometimes in paid positions. I taught the Art Program at the Waterford Elementary School in Loudoun County, Virginia, for the last four years before the Loudoun County Public Schools began paying art teachers, because my children were students there and I wanted to keep that program going. I also translated and interpreted in legal (before the Loudoun County Court system required Federal certification), medical and educational settings, earning a Certificate from the Northern Virginia Area Health Education Center for Interpreting in Health and Community Settings (Spanish).
