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What We Are Who We Are Prior to the creation of Centro Maya, the founders taught Spanish in other language schools. But due to exploitative employment practices which did not share decision making or justly distribute opportunity, we formed an informal mutual discussion and support group. In 1993, this group was formalized and became Centro Maya de Idiomas, which to our knowledge is Guatemala's first all-Native American owned and operated school. In 2007 due to unreconciliable differences with the orginal partners Centro Maya Xela was formed. The only thing that has changed is the name our program, our staff and our wonderful service will always be the same. On an economic level, we saw the Centro’s founding as a means of providing just and appropriate employment for educated Maya and a range of Indigenous and Ladino support staff. On a cultural level, meanwhile we dedicated the Centro to the conservation and promotion of Maya culture and the betterment of Guatemalan society. We do not reject modernity. But we promote the great value of the Maya worldview, and remain committed to the pragmatic practice, investigation and preservation of traditional Maya cosmovision and culture Our
Priorities And what does touch the hearts and fire the imaginations of students at Centro Maya? Different people express it in different ways, but two themes are inevitably embedded in their words – the marvelous surprise and pleasure of discovering new friendships in an exotic foreign land, and the profound, sad joy of comprehending an ineffable beauty in the struggle of poor Guatemalans for dignity and survival. So while we are very confident that we do a great job of teaching Spanish to our students, we understand that at the end of their journey, language may not be the most important thing one can learn at Centro Maya.
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A
basic description of Centro Maya Xela begins with the simple
fact that we are a Spanish language school in the Guatemalan Highlands
city of Quetzaltenango. We are not "just another school,"
however. Our students acquire conversational abilities rapidly
through a full immersion experience, in which a one-to-one student/teacher
ratio and homestay with a Guatemalan family are essential elements
of the teaching methodology. Individual instruction means
individual lesson scheduling, so students begin studies whenever
they wish, and continue for as long or short a time as they wish
without regard to any preexisting "class" schedule.
Centro Maya is also ultimately accessible in terms of cost, with
a single low weekly tuition of between U.S. $155 and $175, which
covers full room and board and a range of recreational and educational
activities as well as all language instruction. 
We, the owners, primary staff, and scholarship recipients of Centro
Maya Xela, are a group of Indigenous Guatemalans from various
highland pueblos. In ethnic terms, we represent the K’iche’,
Q’anjob’al, Kaqchikel, Tzutujil, and Mam cultures, with
most of us learning as young children the language of our pueblo
before learning to speak Spanish when we entered kindergarten.
Each of us is university educated, either already holding a degree
or, in the case of the resident 
We at Centro Maya are very gratified that former students energetically,
and very nearly universally, applaud the professionalism and effectiveness
of language instruction at the Centro. But while first-rate
Spanish instruction is the foundation for everything else we do,
when we established the Centro we also hoped that while fostering
new linguistic skills we might facilitate a more holistic cultural
experience. Our basic goal was to illuminate the beauty of
our native land while discussing and explaining the ugliness that
sometimes happens here, in the hope that along the path of their
journey our students might recognize significance in their own lives
by sharing in the struggle of the Guatemalan people. We believe
we have achieved a degree of success in that goal, because thousands
of departing and/or returning students have told us in any number
of ways that while they are thrilled with their Spanish progress,
the language study itself is not what most touched their hearts
and fired their imaginations. 
As every good educator eventually must, we have
come to realize that our role is not so much "to teach"
as "to enable." Our first responsibility, in other
words, is not to teach anything, but to make it possible for our
students to teach themselves. This responsibility of course
applies to
language instruction. But we believe it also extends to our
own hope to facilitate for each student a personal pilgrimage of
learning and discovery, in which language acquisition is but one
important component of a higher goal of touching universal truths
by sharing another culture. 
