Costa Rica
Summary of Work and Links to Resources
This website shares the work, accomplishments and resources of the work that the Institute for Collaborative Learning at Centro Espiral Mana and Mary Scholl have been doing in Costa Rica with the support of the US Embassy in San Jose.
We started in 2005 with the support of the RELO at the time, Michael Rudder. He sponsored teachers and advisors from MEP to take World Learning's SIT TESOL Certificate course. Since then more than 2010 we have also been designing and running other courses and trainings based on the needs and requests of the Ministry of Public Education in Costa Rica. Today we have given the competency-based, 180-hour TESOL courses to over 300 MEP educators, we have visited over 7,000 teachers in their regions and have reached 16,000+ teachers through our webinars. In this site you will find many resources that we created for our work with MEP educators. These resources are freely available for educators to use, learn from and adapt for their own context, as they were funded by the US Embassy in Costa Rica or the US Department of State and hold the creative commons under CC BY-NC 4.0
2022-2023
INTENSIVE, COMPETENCY-BASED TRAININGS
13 high school teachers and regional advisors from Ministry of Public Education took the internationally recognized 180-hour World Learning's SIT TESOL Certificate Course in an extensive, virtual format.
18 primary school teachers and regional advisors from Ministry of Public Education are taking the internationally recognized 180-hour Best Practices Certificate in Teaching English to Young Learners course in an extensive, virtual format.
Facilitators from I4CL, in collaboration with the national advisors at the Ministry of Public Education, are designing and implementing 10 distinct webinars for preschool, primary and high school teachers. As the webinars are given, materials will be available. click on this link to see webinars and resources from 2023
2021-2022
INTENSIVE, COMPETENCY-BASED TRAININGS
20 primary school teachers, national advisors and regional advisors from Ministry of Public Education took the internationally recognized 180-hour Best Practices Certificate in Teaching English to Young Learners course in an extensive, virtual format.
20 high school school teachers from Ministry of Public Education took the internationally recognized 180-hour World Learning's SIT TESOL Certificate Course in an extensive, virtual format.
You can find the videos from the webinars and resources for English teachers in Primary school: Accelerated Learning & The Flipped Classroom within the MEP’s AOA and High- & Low-Tech Strategies for Meaningful Independent Work for Input (pre-tasks) & Practice (task rehearsal).
2020-2021
INTENSIVE, COMPETENCY-BASED TRAININGS
22 preschool teachers, national advisors and regional advisors from the Department of Early Childhood in the Ministry of Public Education took the internationally recognized 180-hour Best Practices Certificate in Preschool TESOL course in an extensive, virtual format.
15 teachers, and regional advisors from primary in the Ministry of Public Education took the internationally recognized 180-hour Best Practices in TESOL Certificate Course for Young learners in an extensive, virtual format.
WEBINARS
Technical Training on the new curriculum for diversified education in bilingual groups and experimental bilingual high schools February 19, 2021
RESOURCES
Resources for supporting the teaching of English Language to deaf students in the Ministry of Public Education were gathered, curated and created and shared via this page on this website.
2019-2020
INTENSIVE, COMPETENCY-BASED TRAININGS
In January 2020 15 teachers and 1 national advisor from the Ministry of Education successfully completed the 1 month, 180-hour SIT TESOL certificate course. Photos from the course can be found here.
FACE-TO-FACE TRAININGS
On December 2nd and 3rd of 2020 bilingual, high school teachers from 14 districts and 300 from the night high schools, bilingual schools and bilingual groups MEP attended sessions on the new curriculum. Photos available here
February 4, 5 and 6th, 2020 Six national and regional advisors attended a 3-day training for advisors on Results Based Accountability given by Sean Conley at the Centro Cultural.
WEBINARS
In May 2020 over 2600 MEP educators from throughout the country had an 8-hour training on the new curriculum via webinars. Topic included: Phonological awareness and storytelling for preschool teachers, Project-based Formative Assessment with the Action Oriented Approach for elementary school teachers and Project-based learning and the Pre-stage of teaching for the High School teachers. Videos and information about the webinars can be found here
Webinars for Advisors: May 4 and 5 2020 25 MEP advisors received 2 days of virtual training on learning and teaching using the Action Oriented Approach and also learning teaching in a virtual environment.
2018-2019
FACE-TO-FACE TRAININGS
750+ teachers from elementary and high school from 14 regions in the Ministry of Education received a 1-day workshop on the new methodology.
300 teachers from the night high schools, IPEC and CINDEAS, bilingual high schools and bilingual groups received a 1-day training on the new methodology.
13 National and Regional English advisors received a 5-day intensive on Learning and Teaching the Action Oriented Approach.
27 National and Regional English advisors received a 3-day training on Inquiry-Based
10 teacher-leaders took the internationally recognized 180-hour SIT TESOL Certificate course
10 teacher-leaders took the internationally recognized 180-hour World Learning's TESOL Certificate for Teachers of Young Learners course
WEBINARS
1000 teachers and advisors from throughout the country in the Ministry of Education attended 6 webinars on the new methodology.
2017-2018
FACE-TO-FACE TRAININGS
Our trainers traveled to 13 regions in Costa Rica to give workshops to teachers from the Ministry of Public Education. Over 800 elementary teachers and high school teachers learned with us. We gave 80 teachers from the Bilingual high schools a 1 training on the new methodology.
25 National and Regional English advisors will received a 3-day workshop on Best Practices in Workshop Design and a 3-day workshop on Observation, feedback and Coaching teachers.
10 teacher-leaders took a 120-hour blended course on Educational Leadership and Online Communities of Practice.
Their websites are here:
10 teacher-leaders took the internationally recognized 180-hour SIT TESOL Certificate course
WEBINARS
We collaborated with the national advisors and 2 teachers to design and offer 3 webinars that were attended by a total of 1000 teachers from throughout the country. You can see the webinars here:
Enhancing Language Learning Through Technology MEP CEM US Embassy Webinar 12 06 2018
MEP CEM US Embassy in San Jose Webinar. :Focus on Pronunciation 13 06 2018
MEP CEM US Embassy Webinar: Writing Process for everyone! June 14, 2018
2016-2017
2015-2016
2014-2015
CEM I4CL Resource Website © 2023 is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0