OUR STORY

 

In October of 2010, I took a job with a group of eight primary and secondary schools in Santiago, Chile. My sole duty was to make the English programs more successful: “Just make it better,” said the owner of the schools. Finishing my master’s degree, I welcomed a challenging project to put my new skills to work. So I began observing classes and talking with teachers, directors, and students about the state of English foreign language programs in Chile's public and government subsidized schools. My needs assessment yielded two key outcomes: 1. The English programs are failing, and 2. The problem is deep rooted, reaching far beyond academics. In April of 2011, I was given an assistant. This was also the same time during which I was writing my Master’s capstone project for SIT. Having help gave me the chance to step back from the problem and develop a plan.

 

What started in April as a two page strategic plan evolved by September into a seventeen point, hundred page plan to standardize and improve. In May of 2013, the World Learning’s Social Innovation Summit and was awarded the World Learning Advancing Leaders Fellowship. This funding allowed us to take the resources and methodology and scale them for use throughout Santiago forming the non-profit organization Access Inglés.

 

To learn more about what Access Inglés is up to today, check out the next page.