Our student body is a diverse mixture of students and working professionals of all ages and nationalities. To date, we have hosted students from Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, NYU, Tufts, Georgetown, George Washington, Fordham, Swarthmore, Amherst, Vassar, Earlham, U. of Washington, U. of Houston, U. of Toronto, U. of Oslo, U. of Leiden, Oxford, Cambridge, SOAS and Sheffield and many more.
Below are some of the testimonials students have made about our program:
Cannot recommend Sijal highly enough. The institute offers not just intensive academic instruction, but also a supportive and culturally immersive learning environment. I've found each of the teachers to be exceptionally helpful and vested in my growth as an Arabic student. The institute's students are also some of the most interesting people I've met in the expat community in Amman. By joining Sijal, you're not just developing your Arabic skills, but also joining a community.
Yasmine, Master's Student,
Georgetown University
My favorite part of the Sijal Program is the amount of support you receive from every staff member and teacher at the Institute. While the courses are intensive and require students to work hard, the small class sizes and focused personal attention means that I got better every single day during my semester studying with Sijal. I highly recommend the program for students and professionals at all Arabic proficiency levels.
Haley McCoin, Student,
The University of Texas at Austin
I recommend Sijal to every serious Arabic student I meet. Sijal does three things exceedingly well. First and foremost, its teachers are excellent: they truly are some of the best I have studied under. Also, the community Sijal provides is tight-knit, comfortable, and rigorous. The teachers were always readily accessible during their office hours, tutoring, and the outside activities (including movie viewings, culture hours, and trips). Sijal is also a cultural institution, and the talks and conferences it hosts give the students a chance to connect with the wider community. This was further bolstered by a weekly email summarizing big cultural events around Amman. And finally, the curriculum dedicates equal time to teaching Modern Standard Arabic and Levantine Dialect. This is relatively rare for Arabic programs, but it gives students the tools they need in order to immerse themselves in the language.
Luca Vettori, Student
Fordham University