Around 325,000 people live in Costa Rica´s capital of San José. This cosmopolitan city lies 1.150 meters above sea level on a fertile plateau that enjoys a comfortable average temperature of around 20° C.
In San José you have a real opportunity to take in the typical atmosphere, the public life, the every day culture as well as to be aquainted with the political and cultural heart of the country.

The city is also the transportation hub of the country and has a more North American feel to it than many Latin American capitals, with department stores, shopping malls and fast-food chains.

Coronado (approx. 60,000 inhabitants) is located just 6 miles northeast of the center of San José on the outskirts of the Braulio Carrillo nature reserve. Living in Coronado provides you with all the advantages of a clean natural area, and at the same time it gives you the opportunity to enjoy the cultural activities of the capital city.

Our language school, founded in 1986, is one of the oldest Spanish schools in Costa Rica and it is known by the individualized instructional organization of its seminars.

The home base of the school is beautifully located in the middle of a 5000 square meter tropical garden in sunny, green Coronado. Coronado (San Isidro de Coronado) lies 10 kilometers northeast of San José.

The school is situated on the grounds of an old farm known as the »Quinta Toyopán« (place for the gods). The name Toyopán recalls the indigenous people who buried their high priests here and named the settlement area Toyopán before the conquest by Spain's Vásquez de Coronado. There is a bus stop directly in front of the school, and buses travel from Coronado's central bus station (just 850 meters away) to the center of San José and back every 10 to 15 minutes from early morning until late at night. The bus fare is $0.60 round trip.

Lessons are given by experienced native speakers, all of whom have academic degrees and experience in teaching Spanish as a foreign language. The teaching approach is geared toward on communication, but written language techniques, vocabulary work, grammar, and current Latin American affairs are not left out. We don't restrict ourselves to just teaching Spanish. We also teach the important intercultural, Latin American aspects of Spanish that are necessary for a true understanding of the language.

In addition to the seminar rooms, participants have access to the lounge in the reception area, a terrace, a small reference library, a multimedia room with a fast Internet connection a public telephone and a small cafeteria. If you want to actively relax, you can play table tennis, borrow a bicycle, or use the small basketball court, all free of charge or very reasonable priced.

After your arrival at the airport you will be picked up and brought to your family (FAM).
The family will provide you with breakfast and dinner (HB) and clean your laundry. You will stay in a single room (SR). The home stay program gives you the opportunity to live with selected Costa Rican families that don't speak English. Thus, it is the perfect environment to put into practice what you acquire in the classroom.
It also rounds out your learning by giving you a first hand experience with the Costa Rican culture, cuisine and warm family life.

The Spanish school offers a weekly cultural and leisure program, which guarantees 3 to 4 activities each week. These activities include an orientational tour of the city for newly arrived students on the first Monday, as well as a once-a-week cooking class or food tasting of traditional Costa Rican specialties, a dance class (salsa, cumbia, merengue – around 1,5 hours), or a trip to a salsa disco.

There is also a tour each week, such as a trip to a coffee plantation and processing plant in Moravia, a trip to the University of Costa Rica, a tour of the jade or gold museum in San José, or a trip to the market in San José.

San José is a good starting point for excursions to the surrounding volcanos, to the highlands or the beautiful beaches of the Pacific.