This is a great sign for the future of English news media here in Costa Rica.

Nearly two decades after ex-President Jose Maria Figueres took the forward step of initiating English classes for grade school students, the program is finally gaining headway.

The program got off to a slow start in Figueres’ term (1994-98) but by 2005 nearly three-quarters of primary students were receiving some English.

The bold step, however, underscored a severe lack of numbers of grade school teachers who could get along in English, let alone teach it. In fact, during the Arias Administration, studies found that most English teachers could barely understand the rudiments of the language.

Although some educators held the view that high school English classes were more than enough, Figueres (who speaks flawless English) insisted. Well he might have — by high school, students find it much more difficult to learn foreign languages than to younger students.

But English is a business language that foreign investors find necessary. It is the technical tongue with words that have been (grudgingly) accepted by scholars such as the Royal Academy in Madrid.

This year, English is taught by nearly 88% of grade schools in the country. And the quality of the teachers has improved, thanks to a crash course required by the Education Ministry in the Arias years.

As usual, there is a sad gap in urban-rural education. In urban schools 96% of students receive English language education while in rural areas, the figure is less than 80%.

But in some mountainous areas of southern Costa Rica, barely 17% of grade schools for indigenous students offer language training. The figures are about 50% in cantons such as Upala, Golfito, Osa, Los Chiles and Guatuso.

Education Minister Leonardo Garnier admits that he is receiving pressure from parents of students who have no access to education in the language. They know their children’s employment options are reduced by a lack of ability to communicate in it.

“The earlier you begin to learn a language,” says Garnier, “the more familiar you are with it, the better your pronunciation and grammar.” Younger children do not yet have a “hardening of the conceptual arteries” that makes learning harder every year.

Younger students have a tendency to accept the foreign tongue without over intellectualizing it. They are also natural mimics which improves pronunciation.

Unfortunately, too many teachers still use, at least on the high school level, ponderous and obsolete rote methods to teach English. This is easier for the teacher but graduates may understand the grammar but speak it limpingly and write it poorly.

Also students trained in this method tend to think in Spanish and then translate it into English, with sometimes embarrassing results. Students from modern techniques set aside their native tongue in order to think in their adopted language.

Here, by the fourth grade, most teachers are beginning to teach writing English, the first three grades being grammar and pronunciation. Although English grammar is simple, the written language, with its vague and complicated spelling, is nearly a separate language in itself.

Still, the pilot program begun so haltingly in 1994, still runs into limitations. Theoretically, points out the national newspaper La Nacion, students should receive five classes weekly of 40 minutes duration.

However, because of a lack of school rooms, some get only three classes per week.