Caravela - Portuguese Language School in Portugal (Caldas da Rainha)

Goals

Caravela School’s objective is to teach Portuguese in an effective, enjoyable and interesting way, to give students the means that allow them to develop in an organized and stable manner, and to create an environment that makes them feel motivated and immersed in the Portuguese language and culture.

We are focused on creating dynamic lessons and high-quality materials to make the learning process more productive and natural.

Furthermore, we strive to give the student a unique, authentic and remarkable experience during his or her stay in Portugal.

- Goals
- The Team
- The City
- Classes and Methodology

School Materials

The Team

David Domingos - Professor e Diretor Académico da escola Caravela

David
– Teacher
– Academic Director

Tatiana - Produção e organização de conteúdo didáctico e Organização de eventos na escola Caravela

Tatiana
– Content production
– Event organization

Joana - Management of social networks Client Relationship

Joana
– Teacher
– Soc. network management

Teacher Filipa Rodrigues

Filipa
Teacher

Paulo
– Teacher

Loja WordPress – Construction and site management / technology consulting

The City

Caldas da Rainha is a small, pleasant and typically Portuguese town of historical and cultural interest. It is very well located and has everything you need for a comfortable stay.

An hour from Lisbon, it is close enough to the capital for a visit.

It is also close to other places of interest, such as Óbidos (10 min), Foz do Arelho (10 min), Nazaré (25 min) and many others.

Classes and Methodology

At Caravela School, we follow the communicative method. We strive for the student to have maximum contact with the language and, therefore, the classes are given in Portuguese.

We know, however, that total immersion in the language can be very stressful for students, especially for those who are beginning their journey in the study of Portuguese, so we are extremely careful in choosing the materials and the way we approach topics.

We believe that it is not enough just to listen to a native teacher speaking Portuguese, instead you must be able to understand it, otherwise there will be no progress. Although it is not forbidden to use English language, among others, students have been very receptive to this approach, feeling motivated and happy due to the fact that they do not need to use any other language than Portuguese.

Materials of Caravela School

In addition to the books used along with methods/supplements, the school provides selected materials tailored to students’ needs, which follow the following principles:

– the most frequent first: before anything else, the student is given what is most important, most frequent, most often-used and, therefore, most necessary and useful in a real-life situation;

– step by step: what has already been learned is used to teach something new, always maintaining total immersion in the language;

– natural learning: situations are created that allow the student to understand new subjects through practical contexts, saving time and energy on tiresome explanations;

– role-play: students are constantly instructed to replicate real-life situations with their classmates and/or teacher in the classroom;

– practice: we always encourage the students to practice the subjects learned and, therefore, we offer a wide range of exercises with audio and books, including classics of Portuguese literature, adapted in order to give the student the greatest possible amount of useful, up-to-date and bespoke content.