Who it's for
Best for
- Anyone who wants the smallest group class available in Oaxaca
- People working while they study - it runs a timetabled evening group class
- Families - children are taken from age four
- Learners who want the flexibility to change daily format week to week
Skip it if
- Anyone who wants a homestay arranged - accommodation is Airbnb links and a form
- Learners who want to compare costs before making contact - no fees are published
- Anyone whose dates cannot absorb a cancellation - at a cap of four, one dropout reshapes the class
The facts
- Where
- Oaxaca
- Class formats
- Group classes, Private lessons, Intensive, Kids & teens
- Delivery
- In person, Online
- Schedule
- Monday to Friday. Express 9:00-11:00, Basic 9:00-12:10, Intensive 9:00-13:00, Superintensive, and an evening option 16:00-18:00.
- Languages
- Spanish, English (support)
Google 5.0 stars from 100 reviews, as we read it on Jun 7, 2026. That is Google's number and Google's reviewers, not ours — see the listing ↗
Our take
The class cap is the reason this school is here: a maximum of four students, which is the smallest published cap of any school in this directory. Around that sits an unusually flexible timetable - five daily formats from a two-hour Express to a full Superintensive, including a 4pm evening option that almost nobody else in Oaxaca offers - plus free cultural activities twice a week, classes for children from age four, and volunteer placements. Prices are not published, which is the one thing you will have to email about.
How we know: Research-based, from the school's own site and its Google Maps listing as of June 7, 2026. The school publishes no fees, so this page quotes none. We have not sat in a class.
The full story
Four is a genuinely small number and it changes what a group class is. Only one other school in this directory publishes a cap at all, and it sets it at six. Four is small enough that the format changes: there is nowhere to sit out a session, and the thing that most often ruins a group class - a spread of levels inside one room - has fewer people to go wrong across. The school teaches basic, intermediate, advanced and superior levels, and writes its own materials rather than buying a course book.
The timetable is the second reason to look. Express runs 9:00 to 11:00, Basic to 12:10, Intensive and Superintensive to 1:00, and there is a timetabled evening group slot at 16:00 to 18:00. That last one matters more than it sounds: the other Oaxaca schools listed here teach mornings, and the one that goes later does it as one-on-one lessons on request rather than as a class you can simply join. Cultural activities run twice a week and are free, kids are taken from age four, and there are anthropology and history courses plus volunteer placements alongside the language track.
What you have to ask for is the money and the bed. No fees appear anywhere on the site, so comparing this school against La Guarida - the one school in Oaxaca that publishes its full rates - means sending an email first. Accommodation is handled by pointing you at Airbnb listings and a lodging form rather than by placing you with a family, so if a homestay is part of why you are coming to Oaxaca, this is not the school arranging it - two others in this city are.
Four students to a class - the smallest cap published by any school here - with an evening timetable that makes Oaxaca workable around a job.
What Oaxaca International actually looks like
Their own feed is the least filtered look at Oaxaca International you can get — the actual room, the actual teachers, the actual group on a Friday afternoon. Worth a scroll before you email anyone.
FAQ
Is this the same as Oaxaca International Spanish Language School?
Yes. The school goes by Oaxaca International on its own site; Google Maps carries the longer Oaxaca International Spanish Language School. One school, on González Ortega in the Centro.
How small are the classes really?
The school publishes a maximum of four students per class. That is the smallest published cap in this directory; the only other school here that publishes one at all sets it at six.
Can I study in the evening?
Yes - a timetabled 16:00 to 18:00 group slot alongside the morning formats. Of the Oaxaca schools listed here it is the only scheduled evening group class; Spanish Immersion School goes later, but as private lessons arranged on request.
What does it cost?
The school does not publish fees, so you will have to ask. If comparing prices before you make contact matters to you, La Guarida is the one Oaxaca school in this directory that puts its full rates in public.
Do they arrange a homestay?
Not directly. Accommodation is handled through links to Airbnb properties and a separate lodging form, rather than by placing you with a local family. If a homestay is what you want, ask before you commit.
Do they take children?
Yes, from age four. There are also anthropology and history courses, and volunteer placements, alongside the standard Spanish track.
What Spanish will you actually learn at Oaxaca International?
Central Mexican Spanish spoken more slowly, in the state with the second-highest share of people living in indigenous households in Mexico.
Mexico's 2020 census puts 43.9 percent of Oaxaca's population in indigenous households, second only to Yucatán, and Zapotec and Mixtec are living languages here rather than heritage ones. You will not learn them in a Spanish class, but you will hear the contact: place names, food words, and a set of everyday borrowings that a course book from Madrid has never heard of. The food vocabulary alone - tlayuda, chapulines, mezcal, mole in its several colors - is a working glossary you will use daily.
Learners consistently report that Oaxaca is easier to practice in than CDMX, and the plainest reason is supply and demand: fewer people will switch to English on you, and the city is small enough to walk. What you give up is the volume of slang. Chilango is the register the rest of the country quotes; Oaxaca will teach you to be understood, and it will not teach you to sound like the internet.
That is the city, not the classroom. We have not sat in a class at Oaxaca International, so this is what the Spanish around it sounds like rather than a claim about how it is taught - and the words below are ours, from the dictionary this directory is a side effect of.
Slang you'll pick up there
Other schools to compare
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