Our English teaching program is one of the core development projects at Casa-Nica due to its importance in Nicaragua and its overlap with almost all of our other projects. The ability to speak English is considered an essential and marketable skill in Nicaragua and the majority of Central and South America. Many employers consider the ability to speak English a very valuable skill and will actively seek potential employees who speak English. Almost every area of business in Nicaragua has some need of English, as the majority of international trade is conducted in English, and there is a huge tourism industry in Nicaragua where English is almost always used.

The English teaching program conforms to the Casa-Nica philosophy of working with existing organizations to enable them to better meet their goals. The principle organization that we are working with in this project is a local nonprofit; Masaya Sin Fronteras or “MASINFA” for short. MASINFA has a successful English teaching program that runs seven days a week which includes a wide-range of students from high school to senior citizens. Casa-Nica works with MASINFA as classroom teaching assistants to their Nicaraguan English teachers. We also run a conversation club for their more advanced students outside of the classroom. We have no desire to take over classes or assume primary teaching roles, as this would put a Nicaraguan out of a job, something that we will never do.

We are also looking to increase the scope of our English program by incorporating it into our other developing projects. We foresee ample opportunity for expansion within these continuously evolving project ideas:

• Improving the English of the guides working for the Scouting Association at the Coyotepe Fort, which is owned by that association.
• Teaching technical English to the engineers working for the OLPC project
• Assisting the English teachers at schools we hope to start working with