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July 24, 2018July 29, 2018

Life Lessons You’ll Learn From Hosting Exchange Students

By Guest Author Sophia Jones

Now may be a great time to consider becoming a host family for an exchange student. An Institute of International Education report stated that the number of international students in U.S. high schools tripled from 2004 to 2016, and more are set to arrive. Many of these students hope to continue their education at American colleges.

Opening your home to foreign students can be a profound experience. You are not just tasked with looking after someone else’s child; you’re also in charge of introducing them to your culture. Here are a number of important lessons to gain from hosting an exchange student.

You’ll discover different cultures

Hosting an exchange student is a unique way of learning a new culture without resorting to travel. You’ll learn about your foreign student’s traditions, beliefs, cultural traits, and maybe even learn something new in the kitchen while they stay with you.

The exchange program could also help you appreciate things about your own culture. For instance, Beth Markley’s hosting experience taught her that what we consider normal school activities like proms and homecomings are unknown in other parts of the world.

Cultural interaction is one way to deepen your understanding of the importance of cultural diversity. Experiences like hosting an exchange student can help break prejudices by helping you realize that apart from your similarities, your differences are also a cause for celebration.

You’ll develop your communication skills

The language barrier is one of the common challenges host families and students face, and can vary in difficulty depending on your exchange student’s country of origin. However, this provides an opportunity for you to practice a new language with a native speaker. More importantly, through communication, you’ll learn how to establish a relationship with someone who has different customs, beliefs, and behavior.

Participating in an exchange program may prepare you for more opportunities. See, for example, Maryville University’s program in organizational leadership, in which communication is mentioned as a key skill in learning how to effectively manage a variety of groups and bring about change. This type of leadership can be applied to many areas of work, from healthcare to business and beyond. Working with an exchange program can help prepare you for leadership positions in a number of careers.

The Exchange Mom blog has previously noted the importance of communication — not just in dealing with exchange students, but also in sharing information with your program coordinators. Open communication lets program representatives address any issues a family or an exchange student may have and help you and your student have a smoother hosting experience.

You’ll learn to appreciate mundane things more

Because of your household’s newest member, you’ll view your daily routine from a fresh perspective. The exchange student may ask you questions about how you get to work or why you watch a certain TV program. These questions help them understand the “daily grind” in America and how different ordinary life is from their own life back home. Their fascination with the smallest things we do may help you appreciate your life even more.

In addition, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to grow as a family. As the host, it’s your responsibility to help the exchange student discover your country. This doesn’t mean you have to engage in major travel plans — but you will find yourself encouraged to do more family activities, such as going on road trips or attending community events. These moments could strengthen your ties not just with the exchange student, but with your own family as well.

One key thing to note is that many programs and many host families recommend not treating your exchange students as guests. This means that they should not be exempt from household rules. Don’t hesitate to assign them chores or send them to the grocery store. This will help them settle into their new surroundings and provide them with typical teenage life lessons.

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If you’re all set after reading Sophia’s post, consider getting in touch with us here at the Exchange Mom. We can direct you to a coordinator in your area, or help with the screening process and help you find the right exchange student for your family.

Image courtesy Pexels.com

July 5, 2018July 20, 2018

Small Talk and the American Mind

silhouetted people facing away from each other with question marks in air

I thought our readers might like to take a look at the attached short article. It has some good ideas to help new exchange students (who often think Americans are Just Plain Weird because of all the “small talk” we do). Students can ask host families some of these questions, and host families can help start conversations with their students with these topics, too.

48 Questions That’ll Make Awkward Small Talk So Much Easier

June 14, 2018August 2, 2018

Host Family Tips: Before Your Student Arrives

June and July are strange times for those of us working with international students. Our students who have been here for a semester or school year are returning to their home countries — yet at the same time, we’re looking for host families for the coming school year and beginning to reach out to our new students who will arrive in July and August. We have to put on different hats depending on who we’re talking to that day!

For those of you who see my social media posts talking about saying farewell and thinking about how our students have grown all year — here’s an example of switching hats. What kind of tips and advice do we give to our new host families who are beginning to get ready for their exchange student?

Contact Your Student a Little Bit at a Time

We recommend starting with an email to introduce yourself and your family, perhaps attach a few photos. Find your student on social media outlets: Facebook, Instagram, Skype, and WhatsApp. Start small — a long email or text message may feel intimidating to a teenager who may be nervous about his or her English ability. There’s generally plenty of time to follow up with another short message, and another one after that. Before you know it, you will be having a real conversation. You can think of many different short chats you can have with your student: ask your student what activities he or she likes to do, for example (don’t assume that what a student wrote down in the program application six months or a year ago still best reflects his interests). Ask him whether he has thought about what activities he might want to join at school and whether he wants to try something new. Is she interested in sports, art, or music? You can ask about your student’s community and find out if she is used to a small town or school or a large one. Does she like movies, reading, or going on walks? Get on Skype and have everyone in the family say hello. Perhaps do a short house video tour while you are describing your home to your student and his or her family. Perhaps your student can show you her home the same way. These topics can be multiple conversations through Skype, email, or instant messaging; it doesn’t and probably shouldn’t be one marathon conversation.

Do a Basic Bedroom Setup

Send your student a photo of his or her new bedroom. You don’t need to remodel or get new furniture, but you do need to have a bed, a place for clothing, and somewhere to study either in the bedroom or elsewhere in the home. Think about something small you could do to make the bedroom personal — your student’s “place.” A stuffed animal for your student’s bed can make it feel more like a home rather than a hotel. If your student loves a particular sport, perhaps get her a blanket with a sports theme; the blanket can double as an extra layer at chilly evening outdoor events.

If your student is sharing a room with a host sibling, think ahead of time about how you will divide the space. Talk about it with your son/daughter and with your student (another topic of conversation!). It’s possible neither of them have shared a bedroom before; if that is the case, set some guidelines with them.

Be Prepared for Arrival Day

Think about making a poster with your student’s name in large print with some fun designs and colors. If you’re not artistic, just a big sign with their name on it in a bright color will do the trick. Balloons are great, too. Whether you are meeting your student at the airport or at a central meeting place determined by the exchange organization, try to bring the whole family! Don’t be nervous about showing your excitement. Conversely, don’t worry if your student doesn’t immediately show the same excitement coming off the plane — they’re excited inside, but are likely to be exhausted after untold hours in the air and probably several sleepless nights as the time drew near for their exchange year.

Have a small welcome gift ready — nothing extravagant, just something to welcome your student into the host home and host community. A t-shirt or jersey from your family’s favorite sports team would show that you want your student to be part of the “family team,” for example. Have an extra house key made up before your student arrives, so that your student will know you thought about it, and have it sitting on the student’s bed (with a good-sized key ring so it won’t get lost!).

Summary

Perhaps you can tell from the nature of the things I’ve listed that it’s not as hard as you might think. You know the old saying, “don’t sweat the small stuff …. and it’s all small stuff”? We like to flip that saying around so that’s focusing on the positive: *do* think about the small stuff because it’s the small stuff that counts. It’s the little things that help make a relationship. It’s the little things that your student will remember. In a way, it’s all (or mostly) little things all the way, one little thing at a time, one small step towards a new relationship.

August, we’re ready for you!

Photos courtesy of Pixabay and Matthew Sleeper on Unsplash

April 16, 2018April 16, 2018

Why Host an Exchange Student (or is Technology Enough?)

This time of year, high school exchange student programs in the U.S. are seeking host families for the coming academic year. You may have seen posts on Facebook, read flyers in your local coffee shop, or visited an exchange organization’s booth at a local community event. Your thoughts might be “what a cool idea!,” or perhaps “why would anyone take a stranger into their home?”

In one of my regular telephone calls with a host parent the other day, the conversation turned to our students’ ever-increasing use of technology. She wasn’t quite sure their student this year had ever truly immersed himself into the local community and our local world. It’s harder than ever to separate the students from their home country, she commented. Once upon a time (really just a few short years ago) students rarely arrived with smartphones; now, it’s rare for them not to bring one. Once upon a time, they rarely brought laptops; now, most of them do. Once upon a time, parents back home were content talking to their children on weekends; now, many text their teens every day.

Why host, indeed? Is there still any point to this idea of citizen diplomacy and this type of personal cultural exchange in a world where we’re always connected? With instant translation available on our phones, is learning a foreign language still relevant? Isn’t virtually visiting a foreign country through your computer just as good as being there? So does putting teens into the homes of American families for a full semester or school year still make sense?

Well … yes.

It’s about the look on our Italian student’s face a few years back when standing in line at a donut shop in Portland and a shop employee walked by offering a free donut to everyone waiting in line. “This. Is. America…!” he cried. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, I don’t know … but it was certainly memorable.
It’s about coming around the curve on Highway 101 on the Oregon coast and seeing Haystack Rock loom up out of the surf and hearing the “oh wow” from the back seat from our somewhat-jaded-having-been-to-the-US-multiple-time German student. And yes, it really is a pretty cool sight … his comment reminded us that seeing your world through someone else’s eyes can re-awaken you to your own values.
It’s about a student excitedly talking about a weekend geology field trip he took with a few students from his class. “Excited” and “geology” are not usually terms one would use to describe a high school student’s activities. But you could hear it in his voice. It meant so much more to actually see what they had been reading about in class, he said. He talked about how they learned about how the flow of rivers had changed, and how much fun it was to take a ferry to an island.

Each of these is just a little thing by itself. But isn’t it the little things that makes the difference?

Beyond learning about another culture and how daily life might differ, these cultural exchanges challenge our assumptions about other cultures, teach communication skills, and help develop patience and flexibility. That sentence sounds like a platitude, doesn’t it? But all I need to do is look at our own experiences — and we’re just one family.

We’ve learned that what we thought we knew about Europe was just a slice off the top. Beneath the similarities lie fascinating differences between Nordic cultures in the North, Slovak cultures to the East, and Italy to the South. The slices we’ve learned about Hong Kong, Thailand, and Japan are humbling; as educated persons, you think you know something, and then you learn you don’t. Living with a student from Hong Kong taught our own two children more than a book ever could about how a teenager from a Chinese culture approaches life, decision-making, and relationships. It helped them understand the family histories and family dynamics of their own second generation Asian-American friends, and it taught them tolerance much more effectively than us parents standing there saying “be nice, don’t judge.”

We’ve learned that when people think they’re clear in what they are saying, they’re not. We’ve learned to stop ourselves and ask “do you understand what I meant when I say XXX?” It’s not something we ever would have thought about doing before we started working with international students. And in reality, it helps you realize that the potential for miscommunication is huge even when you are talking to native English speakers.

We’ve learned to be more patient and to not expect perfection overnight (if ever….!). We suggest to our students to read the local newspaper to learn about the local community. We take students in our home with us when we walk the dogs or run errands to get them talking, asking them about their family back home and what their school is like, one topic at a time, day after day. We ask them how their parents expect them to manage money and try to get a sense of their financial situation, one topic at a time. We try to get students who are nervous about speaking English to talk more, a little at a time. Success in the beginning may be a sentence or two.

We’ve learned more than we could have imagined when we started down this hosting and coordinating path about seeing other people’s viewpoints and recognizing other people’s realities.

Some things seem to be the same everywhere. Teens everywhere groan when asked to do their chores before they go out with friends and roll their eyes when asked to do something they don’t want to do. Parents the world over can recognize their children are not perfect. Adults the world over make mistakes in their relationships, and adults the world over are not always better than teenagers at accepting their mistakes and learning from them.

There is no such thing as a perfect person: no perfect student, no perfect teenager, no perfect host families, no perfect adults. It would be nice if we could wave a magic wand at the airport on Arrival Day and announce “congratulations, you now have a long-term forever relationship.” But that’s not real life, and it’s not really how we learn about each other. Having someone you have never met before live in your home for 6 or 10 months as a member of your family is rewarding — and yes, it can be hard work. That work leads to rewarding experiences, and this is what long-term relationships are built on.

I think (and I hope) that it all does still make sense. If our 21st century environment of constant contact, 24/7 online connection, and no-real-life-always-texting life takes over, I think we’re done for in more ways than one. I think cultural exchanges — including but not limited to hosting high school exchange students — offer benefits far beyond being “a good citizen.” The volunteerism component is important, yes …. but it goes beyond that. I hope that these experiences are still possible in today’s ever-connected, never-disconnect-from-home world. We’ll keep working at doing our small part to make it possible.

Images courtesy Ewan Robertson on Unsplash and Gerd Altmann on Pixabay.

March 1, 2018March 1, 2018

Five Ways To Finance Your Study Abroad Experience Yourself

person with camera, focus is on camera in foreground

Today’s post is by guest writer Victoria Greene. Victoria is a freelance writer and branding expert; visit her site at Victoriaecommerce.com.

It’s no easy task taking up a new life abroad as an international student. You have to cope with things like homesickness and the culture shock of living in an entirely different country. Finances can also be a challenge, but you may have the option to self-finance and lighten the load.

If you are an adult going abroad, you may have the option of supporting yourself through casual work — but be sure to check the working visa rules for your host country. If you aren’t allowed to work due to your age or visa restrictions, it could be that the best option for you is to work in the year preceding your study abroad experience instead.

(This would also allow you to fully focus on your studies while abroad, and not get distracted by a part-time job.) Another option would be to start an online business back home that needs little day-to-day running and just keep things moving along while you’re away.

With that in mind, this post will present possible five options for financing your study abroad experience, regardless of your skill set and schedule.

Become A Tutor

If you’re studying abroad as a university student and if your visa allows it, you are in an excellent position to offer advice and guidance to other students looking for help with tutoring. Ask your professors if they have any tutoring positions available. Alternatively, you could look elsewhere and send your CV to other schools in your area. Think about conversation classes and book clubs to get you going for tutoring in your native language. Online tutoring is also an option to think about. You will need a webcam, mic, and headphones, as well as a reliable internet connection to help you get started.

You could also sell your other specialized skills by setting up an online video course, using sites like iSpring. These platforms allow you to film your course and charge people to download your lesson plans. If you have skills in things like crafts or illustration, share them online!

Just make sure that your tutoring role and efforts don’t take away from your own studies. A more informal (and unpaid) language swap or skills exchange is also a great way to help others and make new friends at the same time; you might not be paid for this, but you won’t have to worry about visa requirements and you’ll certainly have some fun.

Sell Your Travel Photos

If you are handy with a DSLR camera, consider selling stock photography through a host site such as Shutterstock. Selling the licensed use of your photos for online articles and design work will give you the opportunity to pick up a small amount of passive income. Try to take interesting and unique photos that aren’t already well-represented. Photography is also a great way to get to know a place.

Think about representing abstract ideas within your photos. For example, ‘social media’ and ‘personal development’ are high-traffic search terms. Tagging your photos with a range of searchable hashtags will help make your photos more visible to internet users.

Make your photos high-quality, learn how to use photo editing software, and upload in large file formats. Once you have uploaded your travel snaps to a service, link them to your website or travel blog to help you gain more personal publicity.

Check any visa restrictions when it comes to selling online products during your time abroad, or set up a bunch of photos before you go to generate some passive income. You can always monetize your travel photos when you return home.

Become A Virtual Assistant

There are vast arrays of casual online positions for those who provide creative services such as copyediting, as well as administrative services like data entry. You can set up a profile for free on many freelancing sites and link them to an online portfolio or LinkedIn page. This will add legitimacy to your new online business.

Sites like UpWork allow you to bid for jobs and set up your own pricing structure to meet your needs. You can find many remote working contracts that can tie into your scheduling needs, regardless of how busy you are. You may be asked to appear for telephone or Skype conferences to meet the demands of certain projects. Therefore, you should ensure that you have a working phone abroad and a reliable internet connection.

Again, you need to make sure that your visa terms permit work like this, since many study abroad visas limit (or prohibit) the ability of students to work. Also, you don’t want to be too distracted by work demands. Virtual assistant work is a good option for short-term casual work over the summer months and can help you build up some extra money before you go on your study abroad program.

Become An Online Seller

This method of making money online requires a fair amount of initial research and may not be a practical option for younger students of high school age or early college years. However, once you are up-and-running with your online web store, the sky’s the limit in the amount you could earn on a monthly basis. This is the ideal financing method for anyone who loves spending time on Instagram and shopping online, and you can set your store on pretty much autopilot whilst you’re traveling.

Dropshipping is a convenient arrangement where an online seller can sell a third-party supplier’s products for no upfront costs. If you have no web development skills, don’t worry; you can easily create an online store. Use an e-commerce host with a good selection of features and templates, or use a free WordPress plugin to convert a blog into a store. Other options include Etsy or Amazon, which will ultimately be a lot less work for you.

The initial product research phase will help you find your target market. Check out competitors and create a branded image that draws in the right kind of customer to your sales pages.

You could place a small amount of daily budget on paid product promotion campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, and Google Adwords — but only do this if you’re already making money.

When you have started to make a profit from placing orders and advertising, look for ways you can gradually pull back from the admin tasks. Invest in automated apps and virtual assistants to help you run your store on a nearly passive basis.

Provide Odd Job Services

Doing odd jobs at home before you leave can be surprisingly lucrative, and once you are abroad (and if your visa allows it), you may be able to take on some odd jobs in your host country.

Look in your local community and find odd jobs you can do for a bit of extra cash in your spare time. You are never too old to do a bit of gardening or car washing for a neighbor in need! You can set up a profile on service sites such as Yelp or Angie’s List. Start collecting positive reviews from host families, friends, and contacts. You can also offer services like babysitting and dog walking through advertising in local newspapers. Alternatively, you can pin your contact card on a local community notice board to help you bring in your first few customers.

Carrying out odd jobs will help you explore your new locale and get a feel for the everyday culture of a place. Plus, you can help people in need and collect some good karma points along the way. Win-win!

You may find that informal work or volunteering for a charity or local group will allow you to still focus on your studies, and though you might not make any money, the experiences will make you a lot richer!

There you have it! Five ways to make money while studying abroad. These options maybe not be available for all students during their study abroad terms; for all of your income-generating activities, make sure you are following the rules of your visiting country. Pay close attention to your host nation’s tax obligations and employment laws for international students, too. You should be 100% clear on any visa restrictions well in advance of your journey so that you can plan and save effectively. Make sure to talk to someone who can help you decipher international visas in more detail.

Photo credit: The Digital Marketing Collaboration.