Originally posted by jonni_w on July 04, 2001 - 3:28 am

In Reply to: Language School in Costa Rica? posted by Esc on June 20, 2001 - 19:16 pm:

I can strongly endorse IPEE, located in the eastern suburb of Curridabat. They have a first rate staff and facilities. I've gone there three years running for one and two week long courses.

My increasing ability to communicate in Spanish has significantly added to the overall quality of my other activities.

I opted for the homestay once and now stay at the Presidente and taxi to/from the school. It gives me more latitude with guests and other night time activities.

I hope this helps.

Posted by Elloco on June 27, 2001 - 13:34 pm

In Reply to: Re: Language School in Costa Rica? posted by Esc on June 25, 2001 - 20:31 pm:

Greetings, Any time spent in Classes will be helpfull. The classes will at least be a reveiw and grounding in 'Proper Spanish'. Even one week will benifit and help a student not fall into bad habits. To make some real lasting gains perhaps 4 weeks. Much more beyond that you might face burnout. I've studied 2 1/2 years of college level and attended classes in Oaxaca, Mazatlan, and Costa Rica, For your money it's tough to beat Costa Rica Language Academy. Great school, Great people. You will enjoy this place. It is independently owned and operated. They also include cooking classes, and an outing to Planet Mall disco,w/Salsa dancing lesons each . Longer stays include an outing (Volcano etc). A lot of schools Charge a lot of money, be sure to shop before you decide!

>I can strongly endorse IPEE, located in the eastern >suburb of Curridabat

Any contact info? Thanks!

There was a very good thread about language schools on the chat board which started 6/30/02. It probably belongs here where people can find it. Maybe Hombre can move it. I's do it myself, but don't know how to do it.

Another school that's worth mentioning is ILISA. It's in San Pedro; 3 blocks south & 2½ blocks east of the Outlet Mall.

I went there for almost two months last year. Signed up for a group class, but since there wasn't any other students at the same level, I ended up with private classes for the whole time at the group price. Diverse group of instructors from different countries and you change teachers every week.

Typical program is for four hours in the morning learning new material and optionally three hours in the early afternoon for practice. The morning classes are somewhat structured while the afternoons are more free form. They're family-friendly, but I only saw kids there for one week. Students were mostly professionals in their 20s through 50s. The owner is European (Dutch IIRC), and they draw students from a lot of different countries; not just Americans.

Excellent facilities; Restaurant on site that serves breakfast & lunch; Computer lab has Internet access & about a dozen PCs. There's also a travel desk that'll arrange the "tourist trip" stuff. They have optional activities 3 or 4 evenings during the week and these are free. Actually, I think you have to pay for your beer on the "drinking night". (Maybe the 1st one's free; I don't remember.)

The only negative was that the books that they give out need to be updated.

Last thing, and possibly of interest to this group is that if you compare the schools, you'll find that all of them push the "homestay" option. No doubt they have some mark up between what they pay the locals for room and board and what they charge the students. Since I rented an apartment, I didn't want the homestay. I found that ILISA's rates w/o the homestay were better than many of the others. Apparently, they're marking it up less.

Their web site is www.ilisa.com