About Us

The United States government, with encouragement from the Cameroon government, created the American Language Center (ALC) in Douala in 1972 to promote the teaching of English in this predominantly French-speaking part of Cameroon. The United States Information Service (USIS) administered the Language Center as part of the American Cultural Center of Douala. When USIS later wound down its operations in Douala in the late eighties, the language training section continued, as the demand for language learning was quite high.

ALC Douala has, since its inception, graduated literally thousands of students from its language program. To make it easy for our graduates to find admission into US universities, we sought and received approval from the New Jersey-based Education Testing Service (ETS) for ALC Douala to administer examinations into US universities, such as TOEFL iBT®, GRE, etc. The latest addition from ETS is the iBT® that is administered several times a year, thus enabling candidates to write TOEFL at any time of the year they may wish to.

Upon popular demand, ALC Douala has opened a translation unit manned by competent, certified, and sworn translators. We also offer professional training courses in companies. We design and give short courses and seminars on time management, stress management, principled leadership, team work, etc.

ALC Douala has a library that provides good research services to students from secondary, post secondary, and university levels. This is all the more valuable as a good library with English books is a rarity in the city of Douala. ALC Douala is located on Rue Franqueville below “La Procure des Missions” and AXA Insurance Company in Akwa Douala. It’s location in the heart of the commercial district of Douala makes access easy to everyone.