After having been in Costa Rica, I have seen the necessity of knowing the English language there. The Costa Rican economy strives off of tourism which is primarily from North America and Europe. After meeting several people there, it seems that the more successful people are the ones who are familiar with, or even know how to speak English.

The problem is, English courses are not available to all of the schools there. Although the children have the desire to learn English, it is out of their reach. Many families are too poor to send their children to schools who offer English as a class. Sadly, many of these children grow up to never be successful. They continue living their lives in poverty, simply because of lack of education. Even sadder than this, the lack of education is not because of ignorance, but lack of accessibility and availability.

Many of the children that I had met had a strong desire to learn the English language. They were often full of questions and wanted to learn how to say many words in English. I did teach English for a short time at a school in the mountains and I can not say enough of how much it was an enlightening experience to me. These children learned quickly and with such enthusiasm. They were so much fun to work with and I was always encouraged to teach them.

We, here in the United States, continue to use their country as a way of escape and pleasure. We fail to acknowledge the needs of these people because of our desire to fulfill our own.

The economy will continue to grow in Costa Rica due to the immense amount of tourism, and I believe that one day, the children and families in the more remote areas will have opportunites to learn English as the needs increase. However, the needs won’t increase fast enough to rescue the current children in poverty.

With all of this said, it brings into light the issues of the surrounding Central American countries. Fortunatley for Costa Rica, they have an excess of tourism. The surrounding countries, on the other hand, have tourism, but not enough to boost the economy. Poverty is overwhelming as well as lack of education. Like, Costa Rica, knowing a foreign language, especially English, will help one to be successful. Sadly though, with the lack of education, tourism, and so much poverty, many of these people may never be successful, and will always have to struggle to survive.

In Central America, it is very important to know a foreign language just to be more successful. Most of the people there do know the necessity and they do have the desire, they just don’t have the way.