Middle School & High School Spanish Student Travel | Class Trips to Costa Rica & Ecuador

Middle School Student Travel: Spanish immersion for emerging Spanish speakers

10-day spring break trips -or- 10-day – 4wk summer trips

Interactive & communicative Spanish classes at local language school (Pacific coast, Cloud forest or Central Valley locations)

Host family lodging & cultural activities

Adventure tours

Optional community service / service learning using Spanish

Flexible budgeting

Flexible scheduling

24/7 leadership, coordination & support by CGI program leaders

Leaders committed to: safety, creating fun and meaningful language and cultural interactions, and helping your students become comfortable speaking Spanish

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High School Student Travel in Costa Rica: Intentional Spanish immersion that builds proficiency

10-day spring break Spanish Immersion -or- 10-day to 4wk summer trips

Interactive & communicative Spanish classes at local language school (Pacific coast, Cloud forest or Central Valley locations)

Host family lodging & cultural activities

Adventure tours

Optional community service / service learning using Spanish

Flexible budgeting

Flexible scheduling

24/7 leadership, coordination & support by CGI program leaders

Leaders committed to: safety, creating fun and meaningful language and cultural interactions, and helping your students become comfortable speaking Spanish

Learn More

Individual Teen Spanish Immersion Trips in Costa Rica and Ecuador

2-week to 6-week summer Spanish Immersion trips to Ecuador and Costa Rica

Earn college Spanish credit

Host family lodging & cultural activities

Up to 30 hours of community service work

Up to 60 hrs of Spanish classes

Adventure Tours

Amazon backpacking adventure

Beach, Volcano & Cacao farm excursions

24/7 leadership, coordination & support by CGI program leaders

Leaders committed to: safety, creating fun and meaningful language and cultural interactions, and helping your students become comfortable speaking Spanish

Learn More

Customize a student travel program of your own that focuses on Spanish immersion, or travel with your group of students on our standard summer Spanish immersion programs.

JOIN THE HIGH SCHOOL SPANISH IMMERSION INFO MEETING:

Info Meeting: Sept 18th, 2024 – Register below!
(5pm Pacific, 6pm Mountain, 7pm Central & 8pm Eastern)

This presentation is a general overview of our Spanish immersion programs in Costa Rica and Ecuador.

“I’ve had a really great time, it’s been really engaging. The host families have been great, I’ve met a lot of great friends. I’m really grateful.”

Sam

“I switched from two weeks to three weeks because once I got here I really liked it and the community is really great, I love the people”

Azi

“I came on this trip because my mom is going to be a Spanish teacher. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but it’s been really, really awesome and it’s beautiful and I love it here. And the people are awesome.”

Lydia

“I wanted to learn more Spanish and learn how people live outside of the city I grew up in. At first it was hard to adjust and I missed people a lot but honestly I feel really adjusted now and I think it’s going to be hard to leave.”

Carson

“This trip was pretty awesome. I definitely learned a lot more Spanish and I made so many cool friends, went to so many cool places, learned more about nature, it was really eye opening”.

Paul

Expect the unexpected
Have an open mind
Your Spanish will improve but you’ll be out of your comfort zone
Definitely do 4 weeks
Relax and enjoy it… it goes by so fast.

Various high school students

High School Student Travel Programs

Frequently Asked Questions about Spanish Immersion Student Travel: FOR TEACHERS

How does it work?

Identify the student travel budget you want to work with
Identify your group of students (minimum of 10 students)
Select your ideal dates for students to travel
Establish your trip objectives, for example:
- Students will increase their Spanish proficiency and cultural learning through attending local Spanish classes at their current level and participating in cultural activities.
- Students will live with a host family for (period of time) in order to see how others live and get a deeper perspective into the language and culture.
- Students will visit the 2 or 3 hot spots to see the biodiversity and adventure that Costa Rica has to offer.
- Students will engage with the local community through language rich volunteer work to increase their Spanish proficiency and cultural understanding.
Identify the trip components you wish to include in your itinerary, choose a couple of all of the below options:
- Small, interactive & communication Spanish classes
- Meaningful and language rich volunteer work with local Costa Rican kids
- Host family lodging, hotel lodging or combo
- Two or Three 2 to 3 day excursions to the hot spots in Costa Rica

Common Ground supports your trip planning, travel and stay in Costa Rica from the initial parent meetings to pre-departure preparations, packing and in country support. We are your partners to ensure that much of the coordination and logistics are taken care of for you from pre-trip planning to daily needs in Costa Rica.

What would my responsibilities be specifically?

It is a free trip to Costa Rica – but you do earn it. Here are few general responsibilities:

Pre-Departure:
– Work with Common Ground to set a budget and basic itinerary
– Assure it is approved by your school admin.
– Work with Common Ground to spread the word to your students/ school via flyers and emails
– Work with Common Ground to organize an informational meeting for parents
– Set registration deadline and ensure that interested students register by deadline
– Arrange flights
– Work with Common Ground through the pre-departure lessons and meetings

Common Ground will help you submit program details to school administration for approval, market the Spanish travel program to your students, handle payments from families, and lead the pre-departure preparations. There is a good likelihood that you will want to coordinate some fundraising activities so that all interested students can participate.

During the Spanish immersion travel program:
– Be an active, engaged leader to your students while on program
– Maintain an immersive environment, by speaking in Spanish to your students and encouraging them to make an effort in Spanish
– Supervise your students and ensure that they are upholding the expected behavior guidelines and keep them safe
– During the language school (optional), community service, and host family portion of the program you will be with your students and be a language support for them and an encourager

Is there flexibility regarding the itinerary and details of the immersion program?

Yes, absolutely. There is one requirement that we keep for our student travel programs. All of our travel programs are Spanish immersion programs. We can completely customize travel for your group, and Spanish classes aren’t necessarily required, but all of our student travel programs in Costa Rica are Spanish immersion focused.

We have some standard travel program formats that we’ll share with you, but we’ll also provide you with a menu of options so that you can customize the program exactly how you would like it.

Does fully vaccinated mean boosted?

No.

How many students would I need to have a viable class trip?

You need 8 students to sign up for the immersion trip in order to make it a viable program.

What happens if I can’t don’t get enough students to make the trip happen?

The good news is that even if you’re working on a customized class trip – we can guarantee your students “something.” Our established summer programs that we chaperon are open to your students. If you are unable to reach your minimum number of students, we will encourage your students to travel on our summer high school Spanish immersion program so that no one is denied the opportunity to travel. If you’re close and you would still like to travel even though you have not reached the student minimum – it may mean that you would need to cover some of your expenses. In this case, we will work out a fair arrangement that covers as much of your travel costs as possible so that you and your students can still travel.

What is the necessary timing to make this happen next summer?

– For class trips, we should be making plans with you in the spring before you go on summer vacation (about 14 months in advance of your summer program). This will allow us to have a firm plan in place for you to present to your students early in the upcoming academic year.
– If you already have a Spanish class group ready to go and need to make arrangements in the fall of the year you would like to travel with students, we would be happy to see if we have open dates for your group. Contact us and we’ll see what we can put together!
– For small group programs where you join our standard summer program dates, you can join as long as there is space in the program!

Diversity and Inclusivity on Spanish Immersion

Our mission of Impacting Communities Through Language extends to ALL travelers and learners regardless of age, gender identity, physical ability, race, religion, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status.

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High School Immersion Trip

Rating

4.97 out of 5 based on 130 customer ratings

Have a small class group that you’d like to integrate into our CGI-led summer Spanish immersion programs?

Learn More Here

Hi Leslie and Rory,

My name is Shelley Belk and I am a friend of Lisa Lowrance from St. Timothy school in Raleigh, NC. She highly recommends your program, so I am contacting you to find out if you are offering any programs for high school students this summer. My daughter Ellison (10th grade – rising 11th grade) is extremely interested, and she also has a friend who may go with her, if offered. We do not have a group, and my daughter may be coming alone, if allowed. Is it possible to send my daughter as an individual, even if she doesn’t have a group to travel with?

We also know that during the during these unusual times the pandemic is creating a lot of uncertainty. I visited your website and I didn’t see any summer options open for 2021 and wanted to find out if you are still considering opening up some summer options.

Overall, I just wanted to reach out to you as an initial communication to explore our options. If you are not offering any progress this summer it would be helpful to know so we don’t get our hopes up.

Thanks,
Shelley Belk

Jeddawi Abdallah

March 6, 2023 at 12:29 pm

Hola como estas, soy de Sudan, I’m student, gracias por sharing this good news. My name is jeddawi. Gracias, Adios.

Shelley Belk

January 23, 2021 at 11:42 am

Rory Foster
January 23, 2021 at 11:48 am

Hi Shelley, thank you for the note and give Lisa a hug from us next time you see her! We do have summer ’21 programming in the works and we’d love to work with your daughter and her friends. No group needed, our regular High School Spanish Immersion programs are filled with individuals in your exact situation.

Expect a follow up from Leslie this weekend. Shoot her a quick email as well if you prefer: [email protected]

Looking forward to getting to know you and your daughter!

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Middle School & High School Spanish Student Travel | Class Trips to Costa Rica & Ecuador

Middle School Student Travel: Spanish immersion for emerging Spanish speakers

High School Student Travel in Costa Rica: Intentional Spanish immersion that builds proficiency

Individual Teen Spanish Immersion Trips in Costa Rica and Ecuador