ESL Intensive Program Provides a Pathway to a Better Life Page Content Alvaro Gonzalez '97, who parlayed his experience in the ESL Intensive Program at RIC into a career at the school, and Laura Faira-Tancinco, coordinator of that program. In 1986, at the age of 24, Álvaro González '97 arrived in the United States without much knowledge of English. After five years in the country, and while struggling with unemployment, he decided to use some government vouchers to enroll in an ESL program at Rhode Island College. "I had a little bit of English background from my high school years when I was in Colombia, but I needed to build up and be able to speak it, write it and read it adequately," he recalls. "That was my goal, so in the fall of 1991, I decided to attend the ESL program at RIC."