The numbers have been important lately. They seem to be ruling our lives and emotions. Alarming numbers, tragic numbers and lately in Portugal, numbers that give us hope.
Things have changed dramatically over the last seven weeks for everyone. Here, at Portuguese Language Lessons, all upcoming ‘in person’ courses and all the intensive and immersion courses here in Portugal have been cancelled. In fact, for the rest of this year, all teaching will be only online
The first few weeks were turbulent, full of uncertainty and decisions to be made, and I saw some students need to stop their studies due to work and family commitments. I had other students ask to re.-start lessons and new students begin because they suddenly had time to study as work and travel plans were cancelled. My timetable changed, and I decided to put together some free resources and classes, available to everyone.
Páscoa (Easter) was pretty much a non-event for everyone, and all my students wanted to carry on with classes, so we carried on with all the group classes and 1:1 lessons. Now, seven weeks later, it feels like we can see a glimmer of light at the end of this tunnel, and I’m taking some time to look back, and ahead.
I’m not teaching this week to catch up and do some much needed updating of the website and marketing, and have been thinking about what makes me stand out from other schools and teachers, and what is interesting are the numbers. Here’s some of them, and I’ll explain why they are important to me, and to students of Portuguese.
1 - My numbers: 21 years teaching languages. 9 years teaching European Portuguese. 5 years teaching online, 2 years teaching groups online. This leads to hours spent teaching European Portuguese… It works out at over 1,000 hours per year, so in total over 9,000 hours teaching European Portuguese. I think this speaks for itself.
2 - Student numbers: Over 150 1:1 students over the last 5 years, Over 60 group online students over the last 2 years , 40 1:1 students currently (all teachers), I’ve not worked out how many students who join ‘in person’ classes, but on average when they are running I have around 30 students weekly. Students study for an average of 15 months with us. This is important in two ways. 1 - I have experience of teaching many different people, different nationalities, and use that experience when putting together the materials, thinking of them, their questions, their difficulties, their interests. 2 - People stay with us, come back, and this reflects the fact they are happy with the service we provide.
3 - Numbers of resources I have put together (and am currently organising to refresh the old favorites and dig out some hidden gems!) - (at least…) 1,000 group lesson worksheets, 300 grammar and pronunciation worksheets, 50 games worksheets, 15 semi intensive courses, 9 online courses of 12 lessons each - totalling over 300 worksheets. Also, 150 YouTube tutorial videos, 3,000 Quizlet sets (most privately available to our students). Again, this speaks for itself. If you are a learner, having a teacher with access to good quality materials is invaluable.
Looking ahead, I’m going to continue to follow the Covid-dezanove numbers, along with many of you I am sure (BTW watching the news on RTP1 at 8pm is a great way to practise listening!), and am optimistic that the next seven weeks will be less uncertain then the last. Change, mudança, has been forced upon us, and we are changing. Let’s make these changes positive ones!
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