portuguese schools with classes over 15 hours a week?

misterinternational,

How have you found studying Portuguese in Brazil?

There are a couple of very good language schools (based on trip advisor) in Rio that offer Portuguese courses (15 hours per week) and student visas

Rio and learn
Caminhos langauges

I have been in touch with both schools and they are very very helpful and provide clear and up to date information.

Have you looked into studying at universities in Brazil, from the basic research I have done I have found them to be more cost effective.

Thanks,

IKexplorer

IKexplorar,

thanks.  i'm assuming that you didn't go to any of those schools yet, since your profile says that you are in england.  did you go to any of those schools?

i looked through the schools that you suggested, and they look interesting.  however, it's unclear to me how those schools can progress a student, since it seems like you can drop in anytime in those courses, so i'm not sure how they can take a student from point a to point b with people coming and leaving all the time.

"How have you found studying Portuguese in Brazil?"

well, i have been going through stages.  at first, i thought my portuguese program was shit, and then we learned some subjunctive stuff, and i thought the course was great, and now, i think the course was crap.

basically, at the end of the day, i think portuguese schools can teach you some grammar
and vocab, but they won't teach you how to speak.  i learned more outside of class than inside class, and i kind of started to regard the class as bullshit and not put too much importance on the stuff i was learning in class.

just to be clear, i studied a lot outside of class.  i think i'm at b1 level right now.

from what i gather, the portuguese schools are all pretty shitty, but the school i went to is one of the better ones.

i think i could do a much better job teaching english than how the course taught me portuguese, but i think the teachers submit a teaching plan and they feel that they have to cover a bunch of irrelevant shit, because that is the teaching standard.

i do feel that there probably was some helpful carry over from going to class 17-18 hours a week, because just listening to portuguese for so long probably brings the portuguese more into your subconscious mind.

i think i learned more from duolingo than from my class to be honest.

abthree,

"Do you feel that the school you're finishing now did a good job teaching you Portuguese?"

i don't think the school did a good job, but i think they are good compared to other nearby schools.

to be honest, i think brazil is not for me, so next semester is probably going to be my last semester unless something changes, so i was playing around with the idea of saying, "screw it" and just studying in another city to get to know another city and get another perspective on brazil. 

actually, i feel mislead, because the school i go to supposedly will take you to c1 level within 3 semesters, but i talked to a student in the third semester, and he said that he and his classmates are not fluent and can't even read a book in portuguese.

i should have taken level 2, instead of level 1, but i think my school hyped up how good their classes were (undeservingly), and i thought i wasn't advanced enough for level 2, but i was.

however, i do know a bunch of people in sao paulo, so i already have a social base here, and i know that i'm at one of the supposedly better schools, so sao paulo has that going for it.  and also, my school helps me out with my visa renewal.  so that is a big plus.  transferring schools and doing all the visa paperwork in portuguese sounds like a lot of trouble.

a few brazilians have also told me that rio is very dangerous, although one brazilian today told me that it's only a little bit more dangerous than sao paulo, but i've never visited rio yet, so i don't have any first-hand experience with that.  i do feel pretty safe in sao paulo.  i walk around at 11 and 12 at night without a problem in sao paulo.

misterinternational, would you mind sharing the name of the school please (PM is fine)? Also, was your student visa issued just on the basis of the Portuguese lessons, or is it part of a degree?

I'm thinking about getting a student visa to stay in Sao Paolo so any advice here would be great!

thank you

pm sent.

my student visa was issued for portuguese lessons (these lessons are NOT part of a degree)