Dear friends, We would like to include on this website from time to time people’s own stories about cultural exchange, both from students’ and families’ point of view. We’re not just looking for families and students to tell us this was the best experience they have ever had. We know you can get that elsewhere, […]
Just a fun video I thought I would share this afternoon as many of us get ready to watch or listen to election news tonight in the U.S. We share a lot about democracy and the election process with our students…this video has nothing to do with that, not directly. It just shows a young […]
We’ve written before about challenges our exchange students face in the beginning of the year; see, for example, this blog post. It’s that time of year again. Exchange students have been in their communities and schools long enough for life to feel almost ‘normal’ — but they still worry about making friends, about how they […]
In our other lives, the Exchange Mom and Exchange Dad are an environmental lawyer and a consultant working on climate change issues. In the past couple of months, we’ve been busy creating new websites for our business . . . as a staff of two with no outside employees, we’re the definition of “small company,” […]
Just some beginning of the week thoughts … The National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) program is an exchange program managed and sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. I wanted to mention this short post from a young woman who spent Summer 2017 in South Korea through the NSLI-Y program. As she says: […]
I’ve been hosting exchange students for over 20 years, and I’ve shared with many of them my passion for astronomy. My wife and I even tried to find the perfect student with whom to share the 2017 eclipse by choosing a student who specifically said she was interested in astronomy, though we were defeated in […]
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 […]
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 […]