I may have been unclear. I was fairly certain that Lusa could NOT provide a certificate that met the nationality requirements
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I see. The problem is that you don’t have legal residency, and are not in the process of obtaining it. To remedy this, the schools ask for NISS, probably to qualify for EU funding.
The super expensive PLA facilitators (6k+ euros) are probably willing to go without EU funding, because they make enough money from you.
A while ago, there was someone on this forum applying for citizenship as the grandchild of a Portuguese citizen, and similarly couldn’t get a reasonably priced PLA course. There is always the exam.
Yeah that’s exactly our case (i.e. no residency and not in the process of obtaining one).
We’d looked at CipleMaster that’s priced at €5k+ and even they want residency permit or NISS. It seems like it’s not the coursework per se that requires these two items. But rather to issue a PLA certificate and register the student as having completed the 150 hour course into the government system, this kind of information is required. To be clear, I don’t know the details and I’m just speculating here.
No, the CAPLE certificate isn’t affected by the residency status. Anyone in the world can take the test or attend a course.
What kind of course is that, online or in-person? And how many students per class? I suppose this must be ‘intensive’ 4+ hours per class type judging by the price tag?
It’s online using Webex (which allows the school that issues the PLA certificate to keep track of attendance), 3 hours per weekday for 10 weeks.
There are almost 20 students per class, so not optimal from the perspective of language learning. I would say 3 hours in such a big class is less effective than 1 hour of active recall with an iTalki tutor. But I had to prioritize timing.
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Do you know why the schools then have the residency requirement for the course?
I’m looking for a more relaxed PLA course as well, including the ability to do 25% of the classes as self-study. @jb4422 did you end up signing up with LSBS and if so, how was it?
I don’t really know, but from my experience living in Portugal, everyone just prefers the local form of ID and asks for it first. Until I received my card, I just used the passport instead, and it worked just fine, including registering for the CIPLE exam.
this is differnt than what it said over a year ago. Stay far away from this program.
I thought it was fine. I don’t know if I’d have called it “relaxed” though, it started with 2hr/3day and went to 3hr/3days plus a few exercises on the off days and it was more than I could keep up with. That said, the 4hr/5day would have been impossible and I don’t know how anyone learns anything in such a class.
The teacher was quite good and very motivated, and they were using a new textbook being developed for the course instead of the stock approved one (I glanced at the stock approved one, ugh). 16 people in the class, a little bit big IMO.
Def not 25% self-study tho.
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For those of you that did a course and got a certificate, how did you certify the certificate when submitting your application? I am not in Portugal. Do you know if I can certify with any notary or can the consulate do it?
I do not think you need to further certify the certificate. It is already certified by definition.
Thanks! What if it is a copy of the original?
Whoever you did the course with is based in Portugal right? Ask if they can send a duplicate certificate to your lawyer for a small fee. Often this fee will be cheaper than having to certify+apostille+courier a copy from overseas.
Has anyone taken the LSBS class?
What do you mean that it was not 25% self-study? Was it more or less that that?
Was the course hard? I’m enrolling my mother and am concerned about her ability to do a course so hoping the bar is low 
No, but I just signed up for their March class.
Thanks, can you report back how the class is? Wondering how intense it is.
Also, did you confirm eligibility with a lawyer before you took it? They sent me a copy of the certificate which looked correct but it didn’t show a stamp on it so.
As far as I know based on the multiple certificates I have seen, they are required to have a raised seal on them and an original ink signature. On the other hand, if you are submitting digital versions it wouldn’t be apparent if that is missing.