About your teacher
The language of belonging, taught by someone who stayed.
Maria João Gomes teaches Portuguese and English to foreigners in Coimbra. Her work is called língua de acolhimento — Portuguese as the language of welcome — for people who have just arrived and need to become part of a place they did not know.
Her story
From the travel desk to the classroom.
Based in Coimbra, Portugal — teaching in person and online.
Montessori trained. Natural language approach, visual material, paced by the learner.
Native European Portuguese and English speaker.
Maria did not start out as a teacher. She started in travel, where the job meant handling the exact problems that later became her lessons: a missed connection, a ticket she could not understand, a guest who needed a doctor and could not explain what was wrong.
Language was always part of it. Teaching Portuguese and English — including to students learning in a language that was not their first — led her to a much more specific idea of what a newcomer actually needs: not a complete course, but the ability to handle the next real situation without needing someone to translate.
In 2020 she founded Dream Room | Cantinho do Mundo in Coimbra, a space dedicated to language learners — where she teaches Portuguese to foreigners, supports English skills, and runs Montessori training. Since 2025 her work there has been focused on português língua de acolhimento, Portuguese as the language of welcome for those who have just arrived.
That is the whole philosophy behind Class with Maria. One situation at a time. Seven days. The words you need, said out loud, in the place where you actually live.
The path so far
2020 — today
Founder, Dream Room | Cantinho do Mundo
Maria founded Cantinho do Mundo in Coimbra, a space dedicated to language learning — supporting English skills, teaching Portuguese to foreigners, and running Montessori training.
2025 — today
Formadora de Português Língua de Acolhimento
Her current role at Cantinho do Mundo: teaching Portuguese as the language of belonging, for people who have just arrived in Portugal.
Throughout
English and Portuguese for foreigners
Years of one-to-one and group teaching, including Portuguese and English as a second language for Chinese students and long-term residents.
Before teaching
Travel consultant
Years in travel meant daily practice of exactly what her students need: tickets, timetables, directions, and the small talk that makes a trip feel like a welcome.
The method
Six things Maria will not compromise on.
Every challenge, every private lesson, every group — this is the method underneath.
Teach the language people actually speak
European Portuguese, with the rhythm and the idioms. The Portuguese that is on the other side of the table, not the one in the textbook.
Start from the goal, not the grammar
We do not begin with the present tense. We begin with the sentence you need to say on the day you need to say it.
Speak from the first lesson
Reading about a language is not learning it. From day one you produce sentences — carefully at first, then without thinking.
Make it memorable
Stories, images, real objects, real places. A phrase you have lived through stays; a conjugation table does not.
Respect the person
Learning a language means being vulnerable. The classroom has to be a safe place to sound bad, and that takes patience and good humour.
Keep the culture in the room
Portuguese is inseparable from how Portuguese people live. You learn the language and the way of being with it at the same time.
First lesson
Tell me where you are stuck.
One message is enough to start. Maria replies personally, usually the same day.
Message Maria on WhatsApp