After many years of delivering presentations to students in live classes, I thought - why not record videos of these presentations to send students prior to classes? That would free up more class time to interact with students, answer their questions, work on pronuncation and do activities together. And so I started what is referred to as flipping the classroom…
What is the flipped classroom?
The flipped classroom is a system of teaching where students receive access to class materials prior to class, rather than coming to class and then being presented with the week’s material. The extra time in class can be devoted to learner-centred hands-on activites. Here is a video [3 min] on the flipped classroom:
So, how does this work with Portuguese Language Lessons?
For the group lessons (both online and in-person) and the private 1:1 / 1:2 classes, we use a method of blended learning; a mixture of self-learning via online tools followed by scheduled classes with a teacher, and … we flip it. So blended learning in the flipped classroom. Are you still with me?
This is how it works: all our course materials are available as online study packages. Once a week students receive their study packages with the materials for that week. This online study packages consist of:
A 10-15 minute video presenting the lesson materials;
Answers and transcripts of all audio (pdf);
Link to accompanying interactive online flashcards (to learn and practise the vocabulary for that week).
Overview of what the teacher will cover in the scheduled classroom activities
Additional post-class practise activities.
This fully supports you to learn the materials each week in advance of the online or in-person classroom. If you have questions on the lessons, you can ask in class or email us any time. 😊
What levels of Portuguese courses do we offer?
We offer 9 levels of courses from total beginner to higher elementary (0 – A1 – A2 - B1 preparation). Our enrollment process ensures that all classroom participants are at a similar level. You can find a detailed overview here. The flipped classroom method combined with blended learning has proven to be a very effective way of teaching, and we are seeing great results.
An additional advantage is that this approach offers great flexibility for our students:
Students can opt to enroll for 100% self study. They can switch to the online group classes seamlessly and continue with their lesson materials and join the Zoom class with the teacher to practice. Life and work circumstances can change for anyone of us, we do our best to support you in this by constructing our teaching materials in a way, so you do not have to drop out if you can’t join the live classes for support or feel you need more structure in your learning journey.
Students can switch learning between the following classes:
Group classes [max 12 persons]
1:1/1:2 [Private lessons]
100% Self-Study.
14 Advantages of flipped blended method of learning
LEARN FASTER AND BETTER. You are in much more control of your learning since you don’t have to wait for classes to get the materials, and you have lots of opportunities to study in bite sized sessions. The end result is that you find yourself learning much faster than you would if you were only attending classes. The Flipped Learning network completed a survey in 2014 that showed 71% of teachers had seen test score improvements from using a flipped classroom model. (1)
TIME EFFICIENT. You learn as much (if not more) than you would in a traditional attendance-only course of 4-5 hours a week, but you are only committed to 1 hour of actual class per week. You will still spend at least 1 hour studying by yourself per week in addition to the class you attend, but you choose when and how you do that (most students will spend around 2 hours per week studying). There is very little time spent in class dealing with individual student’s queries and questions as most people have had time to figure things out before class or contact the teacher to have queries resolved. (Having said that, if there is something the class want to focus on as a result of someone’s question, we absolutely will do that!)
CHOOSE YOUR PACE OF LEARNING AND WHAT TO FOCUS ON BASE ON HOW YOU LEARN. In a traditional classroom, for example, it may not suit you to be working on grammar exercises, or you may find it difficult to hear the listening exercises in the classroom environment. In the flipped classroom, you have access to all these materials to work on at your pace, as much or as little as you feel you need. Plus, you can replay the video / audio as many times as you want (and even slow down the audio 😊 )
LEVELS THE PLAYING FIELD IN CLASS. There will always be certain disparities in the levels and abilities of the group members. In a traditional classroom, weaker students may feel lost and/or stronger students may be bored (sound familiar?). Receiving all the materials days before class provides students who find the materials more challenging with the opportunity to study beforehand and contact the teacher if need be. While the more confident students can focus on what is most interesting and pertinent to them. As a result, everyone is better prepared, happier and more confident to participate in the classroom activities in Portuguese.
ATTENDING CLASSES IS A LOT LESS STRESSFUL FOR LEARNERS. You come to class prepared, knowing what will be covered, having had the time to prepare beforehand. As a result everyone feels more confident and able to participate in the speaking activities.
MISSING A CLASS DOES NOT MEAN YOU FALL BEHIND. Missing a class means you miss out on the practice part of the course, you can study on your own that week and email any questions you have.
GAIN DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF THE MATERIALS. It often happens in a class that what is being taught does not sink in then. It’s when you have the opportunity to reflect and work in your own time that you ‘get’ it. Being able to do this before each class makes your class time more valuable.
PLENTY OF REPETITION AND PLENTY OF PRACTICE. Repetition is essential for memorization, practise is necessary to gain the practical skills. Practising before, in, and after class speeds up the learning process.
MATERIALDS ARE PRESENTED IN DIFFERENT WAYS. There is something that suits everyone and their individual learning style. Whether you prefer hands-on learning doing quizzes and related activities, or more passive reading and listening (watching videos for example), there is something in each week’s class geared to the different learning styles. You can spend more time learning with what suits you best.
CLASSROOM TIME IS MORE INTERESTING. Time is spend doing activities rather than passively listening to the teacher. As a result the activities in the classes are more engaging, and you always have something to actively do and practise.
STUDENTS ARE INVITED TO DO MORE WORK A reason for faster learning of speaking Portuguese is that everyone works on the materials at least twice a week (in reality more like 3-4 times). We have learned that you are much more likely to do your homework to prepare for a class than you are to do homework after a class. This way you get into a nice routine. It’s a very funny thing, once you get the habit of working more, you actually end up doing more work, it feeds itself 😊
IT IS MORE COST-EFFECTIVE. The most expensive component is the valuable face-to-face teacher time. Blended learning in a flipped classroom allows us to offer competitive pricing while maintaining the high quality.
YOU WILL SPEAK A LOT OF PORTUGUESE. At first there is a lot of time spent on pronunciation in the classroom, so everyone is clear on the correct way to pronounce words and phrases (drilling as a group, getting feedback from the teacher). In larger group classes, both live and online, you will be paired with one or two fellow students to practise together, maximising the amount of time you are speaking Portuguese. As in a normal in-person class, the teacher goes around between the groups giving feedback.
EXPERIENCE A CLEAR SENSE OF PROGRESS AND KNOW THE COURSE WILL BE COMPLETED ON TIME. Traditional classes often depend on teacher being well-organised for the syllabus to be completed with all areas covered adequately. In the flipped classroom, this is well-thought out beforehand and you can be confident that at the end of a course everything will have been covered. There is a lot more transparency, everyone knows what the course schedule is (i.e. our courses are all 12 weeks long and run in 4-week-modules: weeks 1-4, 5-8, 9-12. Materials are available to everyone during and after the course has finished.
What are the disadvantages?
YOU NEED TO PREPARE TO PROGRESS. The minimum you have to do is watch the video, but ideally you spend a total of an hour, bit size learning works best, working through the week’s materials before the scheduled class.
MORE TIME ON SCREEN. Although you can print out the pdfs and work from them with pen and pencil (absolutely the best way in my opinion as you are engaging kinesthetically and off-screen), the videos and online flashcards need to be watched / done on screen (phone, tablet or computer).
LESS SOCIAL CONTACT WITH OTHERS. Reduced class time means less of a social aspect. On the other hand – your calendar is not full with many hours of classes, so you have more time for your social life. Some students like to get together to prepare ahead of the class. In addition, everyone enrolled in a class has free access to our weekly chat groups offered at different levels, where you have the chance to practice and chat with others.
YOU MAY WORRY ABOUT PROGRESS. Prior to experiencing the flipped classroom, people worry they will not be able to absorb the material or will get confused unless they have a teacher on hand. This is very common! It was reported that in a particular flipped method course, prior to participating in the course only 34.6% of the students preferred the flipped classroom method. However, after completing the flipped classroom course, this percentage increased significantly to 89.5% of the students.(2)
NEED TO BE ORGANISED. If you are disorganised or undisciplined, you may struggle getting started. We are very aware of this, so we make it easy for you; all lessons follow the same format, regular emails arrive in your inbox to help keep you on track. Additionally, all new students attend orientation sessions before starting the lessons, to see how everything works and ask any questions.
Interested in learning European Portuguese in this way?
If you would like to learn with us, we have classes and courses running regularly.
1:1 and 1:2 PRIVATE CLASSES with a teacher: start anytime.
SELF-STUDY : start anytime
Group classes (max 12 persons) are held online (Zoom) and in-person (Cabaços, central Portugal). We run 3 trimesters per year: Jan-March, April-June and September- December. A trimester is 12 weeks. See the COURSE CALENDAR for exact dates.
Be on the look-out for our regular FREE 1 hour TASTER CLASSES. These are offered at all levels. You will meet the teacher, experience the online classroom and ask any questions you may have..
References:
https://www.cpsmanufacturingco.com/news/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-flipped-classrooms
McLaughlin, Jacqueline; Griffin, LaToya; Esserman, Denise; Davidson, Christopher; Glatt, Dylan; Roth, Mary; Gharkholonarehe, Nastaran; Mumper, Russell (12 November 2013). "Pharmacy Student Engagement, Performance, and Perception in a Flipped Satellite Classroom". American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education. 77 (9): 196. doi:10.5688/ajpe779196. PMC 3831407. PMID 24249858.