As was explained in the video below that appeared at the end of the 1st chapter, after each chapter, you enter a consolidation phase.
Why and What?
This is probably the most important part of the whole course. No exaggeration! This is where you will practice what you were exposed to. It's at this stage that your brain will "consolidate" the material considered during previous lessons.
To facilitate that, we created tasks, or consolidation items as we call them, that will appear in your consolidation section. The items are varied. They range from dialog creation exercises, and phrase generators to crossword puzzles with many others in between. In total, there are 18 types of exercises and until your next chapter is available we will unlock 1 new consolidation item every day (sometimes we will send you bonus consolidation items even after the new chapter is unlocked).
Of course, you can simply ignore the whole thing and the next chapter will be unlocked anyway, but we would strongly encourage you not to do so. Ask yourself: Why am I here? What is the ultimate goal? Learn Portuguese, of course. Well, completing these consolidation items, out of everything you do on our site, is what will accelerate your progress the most.
How long?
Generally speaking, the consolidation section lasts 3 days (1 day on Pre-Journey Chapters). There are a couple of exceptions where the chapter is longer than usual and so the consolidation phase is also a bit longer. Either way at the end of this period, a new chapter will be unlocked and an email will be sent to you.
If for some reason you don't see an email after a few days (spam folder?), you can always check the map. Either way, the home page on the site (click on the logo/"Home") will always indicate if a new chapter is available to you.
Can you shorten the Consolidation Phase?
We have created a feature called “É Canja!” that allows a user to unlock a chapter faster. For 99% percent of students, the path we outline is still the recommended one.
Still, we have heard from many of you, that the reason you wanted to start on the following chapter was not simply to skip the consolidation phase, but because you perhaps have 2/3 completely free days to dedicate to the site followed by a week of no activity. We get that! Even though consistency is much better for language acquisition than big chunks of study time every once in a while, you have to work with what you have.
To unlock the next chapter, we will take you through a timed quiz. You will be given access to the next chapter whether you pass the quiz or not. However, the final grade will still give you an idea has to how much you retain. We would recommend you leave it at least 12 hours before completing a given chapter and attempting this quiz.
Even if you start the new chapter early, we would still strongly encourage you not to neglect the consolidation work we give you. After all, there’s no point in completing our course and not retaining a great deal. The goal, after all, is fluency, not 100% completion of an online course.
If you would like to get to the next chapter faster, simply use the “É Canja” tab at the top of the chapter page. More instructions will be given there.
