English Language Teaching in Costa Rica: Facing Challenges

2022·3.9 MB·English

by  Centro de Investigación y Docencia en Educación (CIDE)

English Language Teaching in Costa Rica
ii

English Language Teaching in
Costa Rica: Facing Challenges
Edited by Juan Pablo Zúñiga Vargas
Centro de Investigación y Docencia en Educación (CIDE)
Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica
2022
iv

Centro de Investigación y Docencia en Educación (CIDE), 2022
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
License.
Cover image designed by Freepik from Flaticon
How to cite?
Zúñiga, J. P. (Ed.). (2021). English language teaching in Costa Rica: Facing
challenges. Centro de Investigación y Docencia en Educación (CIDE).
http://hdl.handle.net/11056/23947
428.007
E58en English language teaching in Costa Rica: facing
challenges/edited by Juan Pablo Zúñiga Vargas. -- 1. ed. --
Heredia, Costa Rica: Universidad Nacional. CIDE. División de
Educología, 2022.
1 recurso en línea (xiv, 135 páginas) : algunas ilustraciones a
color, archivo de texto, PDF.
ISBN 9789968852722
1. ENSEÑANZA DE IDIOMAS. 2. INGLÉS. 3. COSTA RICA. I. Zúñiga
Vargas, Juan Pablo, editor.
Centro de Investigación y Docencia en Educación
Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica
https://www.cide.una.ac.cr/
https://ror.org/01t466c14
vi

Foreword
Undoubtedly, it is every teacher's life quest to find the best way to teach;
there are no universal formulas to accomplish that. A committed teacher is a
life-long learner, which shows why being an educator is not an easy career. A
teacher is indeed like a candle that lights the students' path as it consumes itself.
Such abnegation comes at a high price.
Particularly, English teachers in a Country such as Costa Rica are faced with
various challenges, ranging from deeply ingrained negative attitudes towards
teachers and the education system itself, their own well-being which tends to be
neglected a little too often, unequal access to resources and teaching materials,
heterogeneous student populations, emotional factors in the classroom, among
many others. An English teacher in a developing country (and probably
elsewhere) has to be prepared to deal with the unexpected, learn, relearn, and
unlearn, and whenever something new is learned, it is every (English) teacher's
duty to share it using different means; getting published is but one way to do so.
This ebook comprises a collection of essays written by students from the
Master's Program in Education with an Emphasis on English Learning from
Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica as part of their graduation project. In each of
the manuscripts contained here, a Costa Rican English teacher reflects on some
of his or her educational experiences and encountered challenges and proposes
strategies to tackle them so that any English teachers out there facing similar
situations may benefit from these ideas.
Juan Pablo Zúñiga Vargas
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