Joel Alves

I highly recommend Joel as a Portuguese teacher. He has excellent command of the language and deep understanding of linguistics and grammar. Joel teaches in a very clear, methodical way, explaining concepts and vocabulary simply and comprehensibly. He excels at breaking down complex linguistic ideas into smaller, graspable pieces. Even tricky topics become clear under his instruction. Beyond his strong technical knowledge, Joel provides personalized feedback to each student. He identifies areas needing improvement and provides clear guidance on progressing. Under his tutelage, I have advanced much faster than expected in my Portuguese study. In summary, I highly recommend Joel for anyone looking to master European Portuguese. His comprehensive knowledge and clear teaching ensures students gain a solid grasp of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.

Joel is a fantastic teacher. He is very professional, engaging and always had a plan for our classes. He helped me prepare for the CIPLE exam over about a month, using sample test prompts for reading, writing, speaking and listening comprehension. Writing is my biggest weakness (he quickly identified that) and he very patiently went through my efforts, correcting each error and explaining why I got it wrong. I then re-wrote it (and re-wrote it again) until it was error-free. He focused not just on grammatical accuracy but also on tone and context. I really enjoyed working with Joel and always looked forward to classes with him. I highly recommend him as teacher!

Gosto muito das aulas do Joel. Sou um aluno muito exigente, porque também sou professor de espanhol. O Joel é um linguista, por isso pode explicar bem como funciona a língua. As aulas são sempre interessantes, acho que melhorei bastante o meu nível do português. Outro aspeto a destacar que para mim é muito relevante, o Joel sabe ensinar os hispanofalantes, porque conhece as dificuldades que pode ter um hispanofalante que estuda português.

For our first lesson, Joel very appropriately provided me space to speak in Portuguese so he could evaluate my level and determine the best way forward. He then provided me with a sense of how our next lessons might proceed and gave me homework to work on. Overall, I found a clearly professional teacher with a strong communicative capacity. I look forward to our next lessons.

This guy is so patient. Sometimes I am floundering around and he calmly gets me to where I need to be without me feeling like a total bonehead. He knows so much about the language. I might jump from a grammer pont to some nuanced semantic issue, to a pronunciation problem and he can answer me quickly and reassure me that all is well.

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