So happy with my Estelar experience!

I took four weeks of Spanish immersion at Instituto Estelar Bilingüe and arranged for my own stay in an apartment through some friends. This first week of the level one class was very satisfying and helpful. I was able to learn more than I thought in one week through the program that Gabriela used to teach me. My experience with my professor was excellent. Gabriela was very parient and allowed me to ask many questions whenever I needed to. She presented everything in a very professional manner and kept the class fun as well. I feel that I could have had more home work each night to challenge me more. This first week I spent time getting to know the town and trying to speak Spanish to the locals on my own.

Mariela the second week was very helpful everyday and challenged me to push myself every night to study in preparation for class. Mostly, she was very good helping me in my conversational skills. She made it fun and relaxing to converse with and enabled me to learn more conversation about my work specifically because she is also very envolved in her church so she was very helpful for my specific area of work as a Catholic priest once I get back to my parish. This is what I had hoped would happen when I first came here. She was a perfect pick for my second week. I did not participate that week in any extracurricular activities at the school due to other obligations. I did do the intercambio conversations with other students and it was fun to help others with their English.

In my third week, Nelly was a natural teacher and able to understand what the students understand. She was able to help us immediately before moving forward to quickly. She was very patient and so far was my favorite teacher here at the instituto. This class was the most difficult and challenging but the teacher was able to keep it slow enough for me to grasp the information necessary to get through this week. The walk through the rain forest was a good experience and gave us an opportunity to practice our Spanish outside of the classroom. It was also a fun and relaxing trip.

Even though the fourth week was difficult, it was still a great opportunity to learn more about the Spanish language. Merlyn was a very good professora and was patient with the class. She was able to teach us with good examples and helped us share about our lives using our Spanish that we have learned. That week I was able to take another trip with the group to the beach and experienced an amazing beachfront and different food than I had in Liberia.

My experience at Instituto Estelar was beyond my expectations. The staff is very helpful and very professional and lived up to all of my expectations and beyond because of their willingness to go out of their way to help in all areas other than just learning. The facilities and staff were exceptional and provided every need that I had. My experience with intercambio was very helpful - speaking with the other students to each other and then help someone else learn to speak English. I felt so happy to be at Estelar!