Maeta Kaplan, Barbara Rodgers and Marybeth Ward are the first teachers from the United States to arrive in Costa Rica to take part on the project Alliance for Bilingualism (ABi); all three of them have experience in the teaching of English in the Latin American region and will begin classes this week at the central county of Puntarenas.

The Alliance for Bilingualism (ABi) as a national strategy to significantly increase the coverage of English teaching in Costa Rica. This first group will be teaching a group of 90 students that live in conditions of poverty and extreme poverty.

“We want Costa Rica to be a bilingual country, this will open new opportunities for many Costa Ricans in the country”, stated President Carlos Alvarado, “This public-private alliance will bring more than 30 teachers from the United States to Costa Rica, increasing the quality of the teaching of the English language”.

This group of educators will teach for a three-month period and will then rotate with other educators that will arrive to the country, this with the purpose of improving the phonetics level of a first group of close to 90 people that will start this process and will carry on for a period of one and a half years.

“We are in search of effective methodologies for the teaching of English and for this reason we bring native English speakers. Through this alliance we want to resolve the demands of the market which requires a higher level of English”, explained Aitor Llodio, executive director of Aliarse Foundation.

It is expected that by 2020 a total of 1000 students will have reached a B2+ level and by 2022 the program should collaborate with the formation of 15,000 people in the entire territory.