School's Out for Summer

What did we learn in Portugal's Free Language School....

Jul 03, 2023

I’ve written before about the Portuguese’s love for holidays. June is perhaps the best example of this because of the three-weekend celebrations for the Popular Saints. In VRSA, we also host the Rugby 7 tournament at the beginning of the month and the Copa do Guadiana at the end of the month. But as the locals were celebrating something or other on Wednesday night (28 June), we were celebrating the fact we had just completed our Portuguese language school year.

Wednesday night in VRSA. Live music, traditional dances and plenty of food.

Learning Portuguese

If you are new to this Substack you may have missed my many musings on our attempts to learn Portuguese:

We started our learning journey with apps and YouTube;
Over the past few years we have tried labeling items in our apartment with sticky notes and have often been confounded or embarrassed;
We were able to take Portugal’s free language classes this school year.

There were times this year I wanted to quit. (We have many friends that have lived in Portugal for a dozen or more years and still don’t speak the language.) There were many times that I wondered why I should learn 8 different tenses of the same verb. (I didn’t expect my native Spanish-speaking gardener to use proper grammar when I lived in the States. I knew a little Spanish…he knew a little English, and it worked out just fine.) And, of course, there was the ongoing concern about what “certification” meant and more importantly, whether we were really learning anything.

Go to this website for more information.

Certification?

Many of us took the class believing that we would receive a certificate at the end of the school year. Some of us thought that meant you had to attend classes and pass a few tests. Others suggested, that you simply had to “be there” … a participation certificate rather than I really learned anything certificate. In early June, one of our classmates raised this issue via our class’s WhatsApp group. I sent a private message to the teacher explaining our confusion.

Some participants were anxious to apply for their Portuguese citizenship after 5 years of residency1… the ability to live anywhere in Europe was important to them. Some believed that all that was required was attending the class.
Others believed it couldn’t be that easy. We had friends that had “taken the test”.
More importantly, none of us thought we could pass the test.

Professora Manuela was more measured as she addressed the class after receiving our texts. While she was not entirely clear as to what value, if any, our certificate at the end of the school year would afford … that was not her concern. Her overwhelming concern was that we thought we hadn’t learned anything … that we couldn’t pass the test. So, instead of class that night, we would all take the test

The Test

We were asked to clear our desks … no books, no cellphones. She explained she would be monitoring us … no cheating. She passed out part of the official CIPL exam … and we listened to recorded dialogues. The speech was not slow with perfect pronunciation … Professora Manuela was much more deliberate when speaking with us. Each dialogue was played twice then we had to answer a series of multiple-choice questions. There were only a few questions that I answered confidently. Many were a guess…some were unanswered. Frankly, most of us were pretty concerned after completing this part of the test.

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She then passed out the written portion. You read something and then answered multiple-choice questions related to the article, description, or dialogue. The last section of this portion of the test asked you to write 150 - 200 words on a specific topic. We were told not to bother with that section. We also were not asked to complete the verbal part of the test. Her purpose was not to “certify” us but to prove to us that we had in fact learned something.

We then were given the correct answers and told to grade ourselves. Most of the people in the class (including Denise and I) passed. We had in fact earned enough points to pass the CIPL exam. We were all shocked!!!!!

Next Steps

Now I don’t want you to jump to any conclusions based on what is above. While we were both pleased with our results, neither of us is confident that we can hold a conversation with anyone in Portuguese.2 I still struggle talking to our construction workers and rely heavily on gestures, drawings, and the fact that the daily beers I buy affords me a large degree of latitude. Phone calls, particularly when you don’t know who is calling you, are still a struggle. When “Desculpe, fala ingles?” doesn’t work … you look for clues. Recently, I was expecting a package from Amazon to be delivered by CTT and figured out to say, “Por favor, deixá-lo na loja.” If I can’t figure out who is calling or why, frankly, I am lost!

At the same time, there are some bright signs. Of the Americans in our class, Denise is top of the class. Her consistency, 30+ minutes a day…every day, has paid off. While she will tell you that she is horrible at learning languages … she is proof that even at 69 you can learn another language.

The challenge for both of us is to continue to study and force ourselves to speak more!3 Our teacher recommended that we listen to music, or watch the Portuguese news. She also suggested that we speak to each other for 5 minutes each day, only in Portuguese. I also purchased a course 3 years ago that I have only used sporadically. I think both of us should take the time to review the course over the summer months.

And, of course, we have already signed up for next year’s class. We hope Professora Manuela will be back and assigned to the next level. We have already broken her in.

Expat in Portugal