News and events
Colombian group form Universidad Politechico Grancolombiano (UPG)
In Spring 2009, ALI welcomed its first group of nine students from Universidad Politécnico Grancolombiano (UPG). As part of UPG’s global mission, students in many undergraduate programs are required to learn English and study abroad in select institutions around the world. Thanks to collaboration between UPG, Teaching & Tutoring College of Colombia, and ALI, students from UPG can study a semester of English at ALI and receive credit to meet their UPG degree requirements.
Besides taking intensive English classes, UPG students learned about American culture by living with American host families and participating in a number of cultural experiences and trips arranged by the ALI. But what the ALI students and staff remember most about the UPG students are the close friendships they formed with their classmates and American host families.
“The UPG students really connected with their ALI classmates,” says Elizabeth Bender, adviser at the ALI. “New students are sometimes shy when they first arrive, but even in the first few days of school we saw UPG students traveling all over Kansas City with many new friends.”
The ALI looks forward to welcoming more UPG students in the future.
UMKC success leads ALI student to doctorate school
Raul Zelada-Aprili came from Sucre, Bolivia, in 2003 to study English at the Applied Language Institute. Raul took intensive English classes for one year in levels two, three, and four. While studying English in level four, Raul began working as a lab assistant in the ALI language laboratory, helping instructors and other students. When Raul finished his English studies at the ALI, he received an ALI Academic Scholarship for his academic work at UMKC. Raul went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics & Statistics and Economics, a double major. Mr. Zelada-Aprili continued his studies at UMKC and received a master’s degree in Economics. Since the time Raul began his academic study at UMKC, he has worked in the ALI offices helping the ALI administrative and teaching staff, and most of all, the ALI students.
Raul will leave UMKC and the ALI in the near future, and we are going to miss him very much. However, we know that better and bigger things await Raul. Raul is relocating to Amherst, Massachusetts to pursue his Ph.D. in Mathematics at the University of Massachusetts. Best luck, Raul! Your future is bright and we are so proud of you.
Teacher exchange program
The Applied Language Institute has a teacher exchange program with the United States-Brazil Binational Cultural Center in Belem, Brazil. Belem is a large city in the heart of the Amazon forest. Every year, the ALI hosts a teacher from Brazil for one month, and one ALI instructor spends a month teaching at the center. This exchange is supported by Partners of Americas, a branch of the People-to-People Organization created by John F. Kennedy in 1962, with the intent of increasing educational exchanges among the Americas.