🎉🎉🎉 Hello! Welcome to the course!
I am Alicia, the course teacher, and I hope you are doing well and excited to start your course. But before getting to it, please read these instructions to make the most of the lessons.
✅ ACCESS TO THE COURSE
⭐You already have 24/7-lifetime access to the course platform, and you do not have a deadline to finish the course. To access the platform, you log into your account and just click on INTRANET in the website menu.
In INTRANET you will find your course and your account details, such as the payment receipt that you can download. There you will also find your certificate for download when you have finished the course.
In INTRANET you will find the webinar calendar to book your place.
✅ COURSE DURATION
✍ The minimum time to dedicate to a lesson is about 45 minutes, but the lessons are different from each other, and many will demand more than that. Each student has his/her own learning pace, and you should not rush.
I encourage you to move on to the next lesson only when you are sure of what you have learned because the course is progressive. That is, much of what you learn in one lesson is useful for the following ones.
I advise you do one to two lessons per week. Between lessons, set aside a few minutes of your day to go over the vocabulary with the Quizlet® flashcards and the key points of the lesson that you will find in the summary of each lesson PDF.
You can turn the course into a “challenge” and take one lesson per day or every other day, so you can finish it after 6-12 weeks. Or you can take it slower. But you should make learning part of your day-to-day: this is how you will notice your progress.
💎It is not advisable to allow more than a week to pass between lesson and lesson, especially at the beginning of the course. You can forget the information if you do not refresh your memory every day, even for just 10 minutes.
You can repeat the lessons as many times as you want.
✅ YOUR LEARNING PACE
The course is progressive, as I told you, but there are exceptions: some vocabulary lists (food, clothing, or words that describe people, for example). You do not have to learn all those words because most of them will only be seen in the lesson that corresponds to them. If you only want to learn the most basic vocabulary of these topics, you have it in the summary of the corresponding lessons and in flashcards.
Some people claim that you can learn a language by sleeping or just by memorizing phrases, but for most of us it is a process that requires time and dedication. But, at the same time, it is an experience that opens our minds and creates opportunities to meet other people and cultures 💙💙💙.
🥇 It is normal that the beginning of the course is a little challenging because you have not yet become familiar with the language. But stay motivated, and everything will get easier when you assimilate the basics. Language learning as an investment that pays off: everything you do during the course will be useful for your real life.
✅ VIDEOS AND PDFS
📚 This is a self-study course where you decide when and how to work with the material. You can watch the video in one go or in parts, repeating what has not been so clear to you.
I recommend watching each video, without skipping parts. The videos have a lot of content, transmitted systematically and concisely.
Every second you are watching them you will be learning relevant information. Your time is very valuable to me, and I promise you that all your effort will be worth it.
Many lessons are divided into subtopics and for each one you will find exercises. My tip for you is to pause the video to do the exercises for each subtopic of the lesson before moving on to a new subject. You do not need to do all the exercises, but the more you do, the better for you.
Doubts can arise. In fact, having them is part of the learning process and its success! But all the information you need is in the material. New words appear in vocabulary lists and exercise glossaries, so you see their translation as they come up.
What I first explain in a topic is the theory and, please, do not get impatient or get paralyzed. You will understand everything better after seeing the examples and doing the exercises that you will find right after 💁♀️.
💡 In addition, you can always use a dictionary or an internet translator. But keep in mind that there is hardly a 100% equivalence between two languages. Therefore, the literal translation done by a computer program may not always work.
Trust your ability to infer and allow yourself to be helped by the context, as you would in communication in real life in a foreign language or even in your own mother tongue.
✅ QUIZLET® FLASHCARDS
In the Quizlet® app, you have vocabulary, phrases, and conjugation cards. You can choose your learning or gaming mode. You should try the different modes to see what works best for you.
Aside from the games, there is a mode that makes a test simulation with different exercises that can be useful to you.
You can use the cards on your smartphone or computer or print them out if you prefer.
✅ AUDIOS IN MP3
You also have audio tracks in MP3. They include the words from the vocabulary lists in PDF of the corresponding lessons. You can listen to the audios, repeat the words, read them at the same time in the lists or (if you find it monotonous) do without the audios.
All the vocabulary of the audios appears in the video of the corresponding lesson, anyway. Most people prefer to hear the words and read them at the same time, so it can be more entertaining watching this part of the videos a couple of times, instead of just listening to the MP3 tracks.
✅ QUIZZES
With the quizzes, you will evaluate your own progress after working with the lesson material. To pass a lesson, you must have 50% right answers. When you have passed all the quizzes, including the final one, you can download your completion certificate from INTRANET.
You can repeat the quizzes as many times as you want. You can skip to the next lesson without having done the quiz.
However, you will not be able to obtain your course completion certificate if you do not take all the course quizzes.
✅ WEBINAR QUESTIONS
❓ If you have questions that you want to be explained in the webinars, I kindly ask you to write a list and send it to info@discenslearning.com with the subject WEBINAR QUESTIONS. Please, indicate the course you are taking, and which lesson corresponds to each question of yours.
Your doubts are likely to be the same as those of other students. For this reason, the webinar is much more productive if I know beforehand the students’ questions.
Questions will be answered on a first-come, first-served basis. I will do my best to respond to everyone, but the webinar time is limited.
Therefore, in the webinar, we will strictly deal with questions regarding the content of the course.
✅ BOOKING A PLACE IN THE WEBINAR
To book a place in the webinar, you must be aware of the calendar within INTRANET and click on the date of the event. Places are limited.
You can only book a place in the webinar during the first six months that you are enrolled in the course.
You will receive an instant confirmation e-mail and two reminder e-mails, 24 hours and also 2 hours before the event. In them, you will see a link on which you must click to access the webinar when the time comes.
If you cannot participate, in the confirmation e-mail there is a link so that you can cancel your place in one click. I appreciate that you do that, so another student can take your place.
The webinars will be recorded, and the last ones are available on the course platform, so you can watch them if you were unable to attend.
I advise you to watch them because, as I said, it is likely that another student asks the same question that you want to know and, therefore, it will be explained in the webinars.
✅ ERROR NOTIFICATIONS
The material has been reviewed many times by a team of specialists. However, since humans are not infallible, there may be small errors.
If you think something is not right, or you find a technical problem on the platform, you can write to info@discenslearning.com putting ERROR as the e-mail subject. Please send a link or screenshot, or indicate the course, the lesson, and the page of the PDF or minute of the video where you find the possible error.
The PDF material will be corrected accordingly, so you may find newer versions of the PDFs with slight changes after some months.
🙌 I thank you in advance for your comprehension.
✅ LEARNING FOR FREE
In the blog and on the YouTube channel you will find fresh and free content to expand your knowledge.
If there is a blog post related to a lesson in the course, you will see the link in the lesson.
But the blog is independent of the course: it is additional material for you. Therefore, you decide if you want to check out the blog material or not.
Keep an eye on the blog and social media even after you have finished the course because the content will help refresh your memory and you will learn new things, too.
🤩 On the blog you’ll find more videos, audios, downloadable PDfs, flashcards, quizzes…
🔔 Subscribe to the YouTube channel!
🔸 More learning materials on Pinterest.
🔸Learn Brazilian Portuguese on Facebook!
In case you have any doubts, you can see the general course conditions (https://discenslearning.com/en/general-contracting-conditions/ ), the FAQ (https://discenslearning.com/en/questions-and-answers-about-learning-a-language-online/) or write to info@discenslearning.com.
THANK YOU! I hope you really enjoy learning the new language!
Best regards,
Alicia, your teacher 🍀🍀🍀
