Internships and Technical Language Courses in Costa Rica
Intern in Costa Rica
By request, we at Universal de Idiomas will help our students find an internship with a local organization. Organizations will be located in San José or in a surrounding area of San José.
Universal de Idiomas offers personalized internships in Costa Rica. This means that according to your interests and abilities, we will find the right work place for you. For our search we need your curriculum vitae, a photo and report sheets from you. As soon as we receive your data, we will start our search for the right internship.
Please keep in mind that searching for an internship takes time. On average, we need at least 2 months for the process. Please apply in time!
Duration of Internship
We recommend that an internship last at least 6 weeks, so that you can truly immerse yourself into work. Many bosses would prefer that their interns exceed 6 weeks. A maximum duration of an internship does not exist.
Necessary Language Level
To begin your internship and apply your knowledge in the best possible way, it is recommended to attend one of our language courses. A good knowledge of the Spanish language will help you in the time of your internship. In most cases, employers demand that interns take Spanish classes before beginning the internship. In rare cases, an exception may be made.
Universal de Idiomas also finds internships for applicants that have a basic level of Spanish. Depending on your knowledge of the Spanish language, we will find the necessary Spanish classes that will help you learn to communicate in a relatively short amount of time.
Areas of Internships
Universal de Idiomas helps students to find the most appropriate workplace. In general, we are able to find internships in almost every area. Some examples include marketing, tourism, culture and non-governmental institutions.
Business Spanish course
This course is designed for anyone who is planning to travel to Costa Rica or any other Latin American country on business and may not have the necessary language skills.
In this course, you will acquire important vocabulary regarding the areas of marketing, finance, merchandise trade, service and many more. In addition, our students will learn how to lead negotiations, make transactions, write official letters and handle phone calls
Needless to say, all of our Business Spanish course students will also receive insight in culture aspects and important customs that are essential to success in Costa Rica.
The goal of this course is to enable you to communicate in a Spanish speaking workplace. Our main focus is to teach you how to cope with a new language and business environment. With our help, you will be able to successfully complete transactions in Costa Rica and other Latin American countries.
Medical Spanish Course
This course has been added to our program in order to give medical staff the opportunity to learn technical vocabulary.
We will not only teach you technical terminology like anatomy, physiology and specific heath vocabulary, but you will also have the opportunity to experience Latin American culture and learn about Costa Rica and its people.
In our Medical Spanish course, mornings will consist of reviewing and practicing Spanish grammar, while afternoons will be reserved for learning technical terms.
In addition to our Medical Spanish course, we offer a program that gives you the opportunity to work as a volunteer in a local hospital or medical practice – this is a great chance to implement the Spanish vocabulary that you will have learned in class.
Spanish for teachers
Over the years, Universal de Idiomas has developed a program that helps teachers to revamp their Spanish.
Our expertise on this comes from many years of experience. We have had Spanish teachers coming to our school belonging to the bilingual program of the University of Arizona. This program is designed mainly to help students' to correct structures and vocabulary that have been altered through English interference. For this program we use books written by Ethel Pazos, a Costa Rican linguist, who addresses the problems that many non-native Spanish speakers might have regarding false cognates, Spanish slang, redundancies and the excessive use of "que". In this 60-hour course, Spanish teachers are expected to correct common mistakes that may arise due to the influence of foreign language structures such as English or French.
In addition, this program will provide information for your students regarding Latin American and Hispanic culture. This allows teachers to take home first-hand experience and new insights on how to enrich their classes with cultural topics, new words and usages that have been incorporated into the Spanish language.