Mary's Typical Day

My favorite work day is Wednesday, because there is so much going on. I love to travel during the day and go to different classes and appointments. I have had the opportunity to work on many different projects during my internship (in addition to teaching), which include writing a children's book, conducting teacher observations to improve our observation sheet, recording classes for teacher training videos, and conducting an intern recruitment plan. I love the responsibility I am given working for Elevate!


Here is what a typical work day for me looks like:

8:00- Wake up, get ready, make myself look presentable for the day...
9:00- Travel to the ASU "local" (Where Elevate English/Business classes are held) to film!
9:20- Make a quick run to Mas Masas to get some breakfast treats (I love pepa cookies)
9:30- Get the classroom ready for filming, and prepare Alegria to be filmed
10:00- Take notes on Alegria's class, so we can edit the best parts for the training videos
11:30- Hurry back to the house to eat lunch before my class
12:20- Travel to the ADM (a large agriculture company in Paraguay). I saw a man play the guitar and sing a Columbian Cumbia on the bus today.
1:00- Greet my students at the ADM and start class with Claire! The lesson today was about being direct with your coworkers, and we had a good conversation. We also had candy and played Apples to Apples at the end of class.
2:20- Travel back to the house to work on projects. There are a lot to choose from.
3:00- Work on intern recruitment; specifically the monthly hashtag contest that we have started. Interns post pictures with the hashtags #elevateinternships #Paraguay #IknowIcan and they compete to get the most likes and votes in order to win a big, fancy cup of ice-cream!
3:30- It's time for my weekly meeting with Rebecca, co-founder of Elevate and director of pedagogy. We talk about the children's book we have been writing-there are only 2 lessons left to write!
4:45- Rebecca and I walk to the house to talk to the filming team about how the teacher filming is going. We have some nice footage.
6:00- Add up points and announce the winner of the hashtag photo contest on Facebook! Congratulations Alegria!
6:30- I am done for the day now. I eat dinner and then me and my husband go to a fancy "chuchi"* salon to get his haircut.


I work hard and I love what I do! Someone once told me that it's dangerous to come to Paraguay because you can never forget it; it stays with you. I wholly agree. Rohayhu** Paraguay!

*Chuchi-the word for fancy in Guarani (a language widely spoken by Paraguayans)
**Rohayhu-another word in Guarani that means "I love you"



Meet the Author:

Mary Morton

Mary is a TESOL major at Brigham Young University, Hawaii. She loves teaching English, reading, dancing, traveling, and trying new things. She is currently an intern teaching English and writing content, and this is her second time working for Elevate in Paraguay (because it is so awesome).

Meet Clarita

My name is Claire Hague. I’m 21 and I’m an intern at Elevate. I'm a senior at BYU and I’m majoring in Latin American Studies with two minors: one in Communications and the other in Global Business and Literacy. I chose to come to Elevate because it was the only internship I could find that encompassed everything that I have been studying.

On a typical day I teach three or four classes. Most of the clients that I have are corporate clients. The corporate clients are people whose company needs them to learn English. Most of my students need English to be able to advance in the workplace. The best part about teaching for me is getting to know my students. As a Latin American Studies major I’ve always enjoyed learning about the people and culture of Latin America, and teaching gives me the opportunity to do that first hand. They are such great people and helping them to reach their goals is what keeps me going to class. 

I also get to teach a kids class on Saturday morning and it’s so much fun. I really love all my students, and they pick things up so quickly it’s amazing. It’s easy to be proud to be their teacher. They are super cute and I even got to go watch them dance at the San Juan Festival. 

I also get to work on Elevate’s social media. For me this is fantastic because it allows me to use some of the skills I’ve learned in my communications classes as well as my international business classes. So most days I teach and then I work on content creation as well.


I love my students: