1. Language Activities
Learn by doing!
Experiential learning takes classroom knowledge into guided, Spanish-based situational activities. La Fortuna has many beautiful sights, small stores, and fun people. Students can take part in over 20 different activities.
Each activity comes with a language-centered activity sheet that is filled with vocabulary, expressions, and assignments related. Students have to study the activity sheets the day before each activity. Activity instructors will be mindful of students’ levels and activity sheet vocabulary.
Here are a few examples of the activities that students do:
Guided rain forest tours
Please meet Alfredo “Leña” Briceño. This rugged man will take you into the heart of the Miravalles jungle and towards the top of its volcano. The hike will be filled with rivers, beautiful animals, lush vegetation, and breathtaking views.
Business building and consulting
Students go full immersion as they collaborate with local merchants to help them evaluate certain aspects of their businesses. Fernando, owner of the local grocery store, will present you with exercises related to the management of his store and will guide you in performing the analysis needed. Among other important lessons, students will learn Spanish language skills around inventory management, pricing, and certain basic business administration concepts and activities.
Please meet one of the business and consulting program’s participants, Fernando Ruiz. Here he is in front of the grocery store he and his family are building (see picture).
Fernando needs your help with different aspects of his business, there’s a catch though: it must all be done in Spanish!
En Español, you will have to learn how to tend to customers, dominate product names, help organize inventory, and make a few friends along the way, among other activities that Fernando will give you!
Community artwork
Students will be accompanying Cecilia, local teacher and artist, in embellishing the community with paintings made on natural mediums, notably large volcanic stones. Among other important lessons, students will learn Spanish language skills around painting, designing collaboratively, and describing their artwork.
Students will also visit stone carvings made by indigenous tribes who lived in the area many years ago, most likely the Bagatzi tribe (thus the name, La Fortuna de Bagaces). Students will revive stories told through these engravings by filling the drawings’ crevasses with soft clay, listening to stories of the region’s ancestors, and doing their own story-telling of how they interpret the drawings, in Spanish.
This activity is a great way to immerse yourself into a community’s heart through its artwork, and into its culture through its indigenous heritage.
...and plenty more language-centered activities!
Students can part take in over 15 different activities. Each activity comes with an instructor, a language-centered activity sheet filled with related vocabulary, expressions, and assignments that must be performed the night before.
Additional language activities include:
Coffee picking, milling, roasting, and sampling
The different joys of sugar cane – Processing sugar cane for juice and other delectables
Native stinger-free honeybee tour and other animals including tepezquintles, pizotes, and guatuzos
Horseback riding tours in local Fincas
Mountain biking in wilderness and through renewable energy projects
Dance classes (merengue, cumbia, bachata, and salsa)
Visit to semi-actif volcanic crater (Las Hornillas de Miravalles)
Community volunteer work
Soccer drills and matches
Visits to horse and bull stables
…and more!
Language Activities really help students make the best of the Spanish immersion program. More activity pictures available here:
The Bootcamp and the community offer a Spanish language playground for students to quickly learn the language tools necessary for a host of situations, from simple tasks such as buying food in a grocery store, to having meaningful conversations with your newfound Tico family, or apologizing to your dance partner for stepping on his or her shoes. The Bootcamp’s management lives on site and will regularly meet with you and your teacher to help fine-tune your language learning experience and track your progress. We can’t wait to see your Spanish improve!!
Other important aspects of the Spanish immersion language program:
What comes in a weekly language package
Language packages are offered by the week and include: