Learn — Studying English in Malta

Malta sells itself to language students on sunshine, and the sunshine is real. But the decision you're actually making is a financial and practical one: which school, how many weeks, where you sleep at night, and what it all costs once the extras are added in. That decision is worth getting right, and the internet is unhelpfully full of people paid to help you get it wrong.

This section is where we work through it properly. School types and what the accreditation actually means. The gap between the advertised course price and the number that leaves your bank account. Host family versus student apartment — a choice most people make on price and regret on sleep. Which town to be based in, and why "close to the school" matters less than you'd think on an island this size. Visa questions, which vary enormously depending on the passport you hold and how long you're staying.

We are not a school and not an agency. Nobody pays us for a favourable mention, and we say plainly when something is a poor deal, badly run, or simply oversold. That's the whole point of the site: the people who usually answer these questions have a commission riding on the answer.

Everything below is written from St Paul's Bay, by someone who lives here year-round — including the months when the students have gone home and you can see what the island is actually like.