Arabic on the curriculum: 'It isn't hard once you've learnt to transliterate'

In Kabul a few years ago, I was flicking through the TV channels in a hotel room with some friends. Aljazeera came up, and we watched for fully five minutes before realising that nobody in the room spoke any Arabic.

The Middle East hasn't felt so near since Jan Sobieski turned back the Turks at Vienna, but the Arabic language is still a different world for many of us. That is starting to change. From 2000 to 2005, the number of people taking Arabic GCSE rose by 50 per cent, but only from 1,400 to just over 2,100, and most of those are believed to be adults or native speakers.

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Twenty-six independent schools offer some kind of Arabic, but most only cater for native speakers, putting parents in touch with tutors or arranging exams. Merchiston Castle, which officially teaches the language, has had only one pupil take the course in 30 years.

Few independent schools offer regular Arabic lessons to non-native speakers. Those that do are some of the best known in the country: Eton, Westminster, Shrewsbury, Winchester, King's Canterbury and Marlborough are among them. All but one started their courses after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Eton led the move to giving Arabic the same status as other modern languages in 2004, when it brought Arabic on to the timetable and gave students a chance to take an A-S. With resources and connections most schools can only dream of, Eton has been able to offer tie-in talks by Prince Hassan of Jordan, the BBC's Frank Gardner and ambassadors to and from the Middle East.

This year, Eton changed tack. The Government's Arabic qualifications, it says, seem to be aimed at native speakers rather than the uninitiated. With even the best students only getting Bs, it has moved Arabic off the timetable, although pupils can still take evening classes. Forty-four pupils are now studying Arabic, the most at any school, from basic conversation to reading newspapers.

Eton is looking to move to the new bite-sized Asset Language qualifications set up by the Oxford and Cambridge exam board OCR. Marlborough, which teaches GCSE Arabic, is doing the same. Most schools that offer Arabic do not teach it as part of the GCSE or A-level curriculum; instead it has been fitted into already crowded modern languages programmes as a sixth-form option.

This is proving increasingly popular. Last year, Shrewsbury's Arabic option attracted five students; this year, 20 signed up. It is enough to give serious students an edge over the competition at university application. Last year, three of Westminster's Arabic students went on to study the language at Oxford.

The impetus for this change has come mostly from parents. At Winchester, the head of modern languages, Patrick Herring, introduced Arabic as an option in the sixth form after a parent, a retired Army officer, approached the school. "It's quite parent-led," he says. "Some parents have the firm belief that Arabic is the language of the future; others think it's Spanish or Mandarin."

What keeps the subject alive for students, though, is a pleasure in the complexity and beauty of the language. "There's a real element of intellectual curiosity," Herring says.

Rory Sedgley, 17, studies Arabic at Shrewsbury. He is no precocious linguist; for A-level he's studying history, geography and classical civilisation. He was drawn to Arabic by its novelty, and now he seems hooked. "It's a really interesting language," he says.

It's not as difficult as you might think. "Once you have the alphabet and can transliterate, it's fine," he says. "You just learn words. It's no more difficult than other languages."

Sedgley is going to Cairo in his gap year to study Arabic, and plans to travel in Syria and Jordan. Learning Arabic has given him a greater interest in the politics of the region and greater sympathy with the Arab cause. Earlier this year he found himself backing the Lebanese, something he says he never would have considered before.

For must of us, it's current affairs that give Arabic its relevance. But Ali Omar, who teaches the language at Marlborough, says: "Some students want to study theology and need Arabic. I even had one student who wanted to go into public relations and thought it would help."