Experience with AmeriSpan?

<p>Our S (2nd year college) is considering a Portuguese language immerision program in Brazil through this group next summer and I was wondering if anybody had experience with them? He had an excellent experience in a Spanish immersion program in Peru through his school last summer, but the school doesn't offer a similar program for Portuguese. He had a solid grounding in Spanish from high school so finished the summer with a high degree of fluency (so he tells us), but here he would be starting from scratch.</p>

<p>I asked him to look into doing a mix of language training for a month and then volunteer work for a month or so. However, he tells me that the application for volunteer work required two detailed essays in Portuguese. He decided to answer the essay prompts in Spanish since he doesn't know any Portuguese. I don't think that counts, so was going to advise him to just do 8-10 weeks of language rather than a mix but am worried that the classes won't advance enough. It looks like the standard is a month, although it is available for up to 12 weeks. I'm hoping he can find stuff to keep him busy once he gets there, as classes are only 4 hours per day.</p>

<p>What are peoples thoughts?</p>