”I’ve just completed Sonia’s excellent beginners’ course today, so my thanks to you and Sonia for a brilliant experience. Whilst I have lots of practice to do, I can’t believe how much I have learnt in the last 2 weeks and how helpful it has been in getting a basic understanding of Portuguese. My sincere thanks to Sonia for her amazing teaching.

Steve - UK

”I am really delighted with the Intermediate Course that I am now doing online. I did the Beginners' Course in 2018 and the Pre-Intermediate Course in 2019 in the Centro in Lagos and enjoyed both those courses and learned a lot. I thought, with the Corona Virus situation, that the Intermediate Course I had enrolled in would be cancelled and I was very happy when I heard that it was moving online.

We are now half-way through the course and it is going really well. I am doing it from my home in Ireland. To be honest it is not very different from the experience of doing it face to face in a group in the Centro. The group of seven in the class has gelled very well and the classes are accessible and engaging. The technology has worked and there have been no problems at all. The homework is emailed to us after the lessons.

I would be happy to reassure anyone who is nervous about doing a course like this online that it works and it is easy to do. The main difference I regret is that nobody can bring a box of Pasteis de Nata for our break - as we used to take turns doing when I attended the courses in the Centro in the past. Now if Ana could find a way to email them - that would be really excellent!!!

Máire – Ireland

”My experience so far has been great. Sonia is a wonderful teacher and adapted to the online environment very efficiently. Also the sharing of the course work after class, and sharing the Zoom links ahead of class is done very smoothly - kudos!

It’s of course nice to be in a room with people in terms of the social aspect and the acoustics, but other than the parts of the session where we all repeat after the teacher at the same time (which can be a bit tricky to hear others and yourself), I’ve not felt any less supported or experienced any negative drawbacks from attending the classes online.

I mentioned to Sonia the other week that I actually think this format could work really well for including students who can’t physically attend classes in Lagos, and perhaps for weekly conversational classes to follow on from the courses. For example, I will be returning to the UK in June time and then spend half my time in the UK and half my time in Lagos, and it would be great if I could continue lessons from the UK so I don’t lose the momentum I’ve been building up 🙂

Anja - Lagos

”I am certainly grateful for the opportunity to pursue my Portuguese learning during the current pandemic when classroom lessons are not possible. I think for me it helps a lot that Sonia is a very good teacher, and also that she was the teacher for the intensive beginners’ course I attended in November – somehow the fact that we had already met face to face made the online lessons more natural.

You obviously lose a certain amount of interaction in the online setting and the body language is harder to discern, so if I had the choice I would still prefer to learn in the classroom setting. But in the current situation, and for those unable to travel to Lagos for lessons, I think Zoom provides a good alternative.

Technically things have worked well with very few audio or visual problems, and Ana has been very efficient in issuing learning materials and homework by email on the same day. I do think a smaller group works better online – our pre-intermediate course had 5 students initially and this has now dropped to 4, but I think any more than 5 might make things a bit more cumbersome.

While we all hope that classroom learning will be possible again in the not too distant future, I would not hesitate to sign up to another online course if that were the only option.

Ross – Lagos

”Our course is amazing, we learn a lot, it is quite quick in jumping from grammar to grammar but I love Sonia, she is a very good teacher and very empathetic. The course is built up in a way that things stick. We obviously have to do most of the work by practising at home but without that there is no learning a language. I don't really see any difference in online or in a real course, Sonia has adapted to the online teaching in a very professional manner.
I would like to continue courses with her after this ends :)!

Becca - Germany

”Personally I think it’s more than perfect. I don’t have to travel to Lagos (I live in Burgau) so I can safe a lot of time.
If I could choose between online and normal course I would always choose online.

And of course Sonia is amazing teacher!!

Jana – Burgau

”I wasn’t sure myself when the offer was made, but have to say I like it very much so far. There are no disadvantages whatsoever, the course format and quality is exactly the same as the in-house course I took earlier this year.

To the contrary, there certain advantages over the in-house format, I.e. no travel, no parking fees.

I actually like this format better...

Stefan – Lagos

”I’m enjoying it very much thanks. Sonia is excellent as always and learning-wise I feel like everything is very similar to physical classes.

I think people may be reluctant because part of what they enjoy in the lessons is the activity of going somewhere & the opportunity to meet people and have some social time around the class, so not really something that is possible with any online course. I know that for me, the social aspect was the reason I originally chose a group course.

Another factor may be that if people are happy to learn online, there are many alternative courses / ways to learn online which may cost less or offer private tuition for a similar price. Whether or not the quality is the same I don’t know, but to be honest if I hadn’t already been to the school, if I didn’t know Sonia and like the course structure, I probably would have tried a cheap online option first.

Helena – Lagos