Learn Arabic in Cairo, Egypt

Our school in Cairo

Our school in Cairo has over 30 years’ experience of teaching Arabic, and all of our teachers are fully-qualified native speakers. Students at our school attending an Arabic course in Cairo have access to the Internet throughout the day, a bookshop, a student library and study centre, as well as an onsite student cafeteria serving a variety of reasonably priced drinks and snacks. Our school is located in a safe residential area of Cairo, close to the city centre. The average class size is just 8 students (max. 16) so you’ll get plenty of individual attention, and the 14 classrooms are all air-conditioned.

Lessons at our Arabic school in Cairo take place from Monday to Thursday, leaving you Friday, Saturday and Sunday to explore the city and the see the world famous sights beyond! Our school organises optional cultural activities every month, including weekend excursions to the Pyramids, Fayoum, Coptic Cairo, Islamic Cairo and Alexandria.

Courses

You can choose from a range of courses at our Arabic school in Cairo, including Egyptian Colloquial Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. Remember, if you like, you can choose to combine the two on a Combined Course. Our school also offers a range of special interest courses, including Calligraphy (writing Arabic characters), Reading for Pronunciation, Media Arabic, Guided Writing & Conversation and one-to-one lessons.

Accommodation

Our school in Cairo also offers a comfortable and convenient on-site school residence for students staying longer than 4 weeks. However, as availability in the school residence is limited, we recommend that you book early. Students staying just a couple of weeks, usually stay in a comfortable centrally located hotel, recommended by our school. For students staying longer, we recommend staying the first few nights in a hotel. You will then be assisted by our school in finding a student shared apartment (sharing a self-catering apartment with other students from the school), or in finding a hotel. Alternatively, book well in advance, so as to be able to stay in the on-site school residence.

Please note that accommodation in a shared apartment or hotel is not included, and should be paid for directly in Cairo.

How to get there

If you are making your first visit to Cairo, we would recommend that you use our school’s airport transfer service. This service is available throughout the school week and at weekends.

Learning the Lingo in Egypt!

The best bits of the courses that I took were for me the very thorough drilling of sounds/letters, controlled oral practice 'chains' around the class, the slightly freer oral/aural pair work information gap activities we had from time to time, the use of visual aids to reinforce meaning, the use of very targeted task-based simple listening on audio CD, the very targeted letter recognition and copying exercises, and the relaxed concentration of trying to copy exactly the flowing pen strokes of my calligraphy teacher, Ahmed, who was a really neat and exact scribe.

There was a very useful PowerPoint introduction to living in Egypt delivered by the friendly school manager at the start of the course for new students. The social programme at the school was lively and included - while I was there - a Valentine's Day dinner at the school, as well as the usual weekend sightseeing visits. (The weekend was of 3 days - Friday, Saturday and Sunday - which was good in order to be able to see a bit of Cairo.) There was a good-sized computer room with a number of PCs available and free wi-fi access at the school too, so it was very easy to stay in touch with family and friends (and work too when necessary) via email.

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