Lisbon is fashionable now! That’s what we hear these days in the streets, in stores and in our school also. But that’s not all, Porto is fashionable too as well as all country! These are two of the oldest cities in Europe, full of life, that make the delight of many tourists who can find an excellent climate here, history, culture, art, monuments, beaches, wonderful landscapes, good people, traditional Mediterranean gastronomy full of flavour and we still are a cheap country. These factors are attracting many foreigners to Lisbon and Porto, what is making these cities more and more cosmopolitan.
Portuguese is the fifth most spoken language in the world, meaning that someone who learns Portuguese can also use it in Brazil, in all ex Portuguese colonies in Africa and also in Timor and Macao. There are many foreigners travelling to these destinations whether it is for leisure or professional reasons and end up with the need of knowing some basic words.
Currently there are people from all over the world living in Portugal and they don’t go just to Lisbon and Porto. They also look for living in the interior for its simplicity, for the less developed villages and still rural where you can live in a quite environment and in very genuine and unique communities. Here, to live in a community it’s essential to communicate in Portuguese, otherwise they will be stuck in their own language without having the chance to live in a social context.
Many people from other countries come just for a visit but many come to live and stay here with their families. Some are already retired, others bring their businesses to Portugal and others come to work in multinational companies. There are many students who come to our universities and need to stay for a period.
Aside from people who come to our country, fall in love and decide to stay, we also have many big multinational companies (some establish here their headquarters) where many Portuguese work but many foreigners too, and those need Portuguese language courses.
To learn Portuguese for foreigners, then becomes a need to these people and their families. Although a big part of Portuguese people speak English or French, to live here always implies to learn our language. In a foreign country, not knowing how to communicate in native language means isolation. Integration in a community where you live and in the company where you work is fundamental for wellbeing, to express our ideas and feel comfortable during a conversation. Pronunciation isn’t easy and can be unperfect but above all it’s important to communicate.
In our school, over the years we’ve had students of Portuguese as a Foreign Language of many nationalities. We’ve had private students but mainly companies that offer language training to their workers in different idioms, but Portuguese for Foreigners is the one we teach the most. Not because Portuguese is the official language inside the companies, normally it is English, but because foreign collaborators who come to Portugal have the need to live in a community. Once again, nobody is able to live isolated and there’s always the need and the desire of belonging and make part of a society.
Our teachers are excellent when it comes to student’s motivation and they have good manuals available with useful vocabulary for daily life, texts about current themes, dialogues to listen and practice. In class, the teacher stimulates reading comprehension, production and oral interaction, with lots of phonetics exercises. Above all classes are very practical with everyday situation sceneries, in a fun and enriching way for teachers and students.
