Exchange Students

[Lirael]

Has anyone here had an exchange student (a student from another country) visit their school? What were they like?

Have you had an exchange student attached to you? Did you visit their country?

I've had two French exchange students come to live with me, but I'll post about the experience later! Over to y'all first!

 

[Jack's Smirking Revenge]

i went to australia in 2004 and stayed with a host family for a week. i had a brilliant time, they were all really nice to me and were very accommodating and i'd go back any time. i thought it would probably be really weird and awkward staying in their house, but i settled in quick and we all got on really well.

the return trip for the australians coming here was a few months later, and we had mitch (who i'd stayed with) at ours. again, it was a great week.

 

[Squid]

I have never been an exchange student or had one come and live at my house. I can't really imagine what it would be like having to entertain some random person for a week or a month or however long it takes. I did for a while consider having a international uni student stay at my house for a year because you get rent and all you have to do is supply them a room and meals and occasionally take them somewhere fun. But nahhhhh

I remember in highschool we had this german guy exchange over, his name was Jan and he was very hot. That is my experience with exchange students.

 

[Kandy-Sugar]

For as long as I can remember we've always had exchange students at our house.

Not where I'm living now, but when I was living at home with my parents.

They had one Japanese boy back when I was only 5 I think.

Then they had a Japanese girl a little later on when I was around 7 and my parents still keep in contact with her.

Then there were a few more in primary school and the latest was a Japanese girl that came to my highschool for a couple of weeks.

Then she came back again a couple of years later with her best friend. Then a couple of years later she came back again with her husband and baby.

They've always been Japanese students too. We never got another other exchange students from other countries.

It was okay having them around. It was hard when some of them weren't very good at English though. They'd get out their Japanese/English dictionary and show us what they were trying to say.

But yeah I wouldn't go out of my way to have one stay at my house. Not really a people person, especially when there's a communication barrier at times.

 

[Lirael]

Oh gosh, I totally forgot about this thread!

So, the two French exchange students...

The first exchange student was a girl called Marion, who came to England with a selection of other kids from her school. They all stayed with a family from my school. I was in year 6 at the time, so I must have been about 10. I don't remember a lot about the experience.

I do remember winning at badminton, only to have Dad give Marion another go until she won. At the time, I felt like he was playing favourites and resented it, but he was just trying to help her feel at home. I used to run away and sulk... kids, eh?

Ooh, I remember us going crazy over nutella too! That stuff is GORGEOUS and we had an awful lot of it that week.

My parents and I went to stay with her at her family home in Lyon a couple of years later. Lyon was HUGE and their house was HUGE and spacious and so posh... They had a swimming pool, an electronic gate and walls around their propety, a long extensive garden with a path which led down to a wendy house and then the lake beyond, a boat, a second house in their driveway in which the grandmother lived...



A few years later, my mum brought home a girl called Julie. Her school was running a French exchange and, essentially, the girl whom Julie was meant to stay with had decided that she didn't like Julie and wanted nothing to do with her. Julie turned up to mine in tears.

Seeing her upset, I decided to do everything I could to make her feel happy. I showed her Donkey Konga on my Gamecube (which we played A LOT), tried my best to speak some French, though I did terribly, asked her about her horse pendant and the horses she rode at home! Within a couple of hours, she was so much more cheery. I am guessing she was pretty scared at first and wasn't sure I'd be very nice. I'd hate to have been in her situation.

Over the week, we spent a lot of time on the Gamecube. We watched a few movies, and I am pretty sure that I showed her an anime! We watched them in French! We walked around the small woods which sits just off my back garden, and we just joked about silly things. We were both pretty different, I think... unique people who didn't quite fit in with the crowd, but that meant we became close friends fast.

The week she was here was so fun. I regret losing contact with her.

 

[Shael-BurizaDo]

i have had an exchange student come stay at my house from another country. she was staying with my younger sister, who is 3/4 years younger than i. i want to say i was in 7th or 8th grade but i am not sure at all.

this girl was cool, it was fun, sometimes she fought with my lil sister, but mostly because me and my older sister just messed with them, simply to gang up on lil sister


also, i was an exchange student sent away from the USA, when i was a boy. i met so many cool people, it was a really good time. i didn't learn anyones name though, i hate forgetting names too . i wish i had kept up with them...

 

[Mitsuki]

I think it would be quite an experience having exchange students live with you. I wouldn't mind it at all.

I do remember having exchange students at my high school. One particular was Sachiko (from Japan). She was friends with one of my friends and one day, we got introduced to each other while out on a whale watching field trip. My friends and I were so awed by her. She kept talking about how she missed her dog...but didn't miss her mom. And then she described how cool the toilets were in Japan. That was...interesting, to say the least. Before she left the U.S, we had a small party at the place she was staying in, and that was the last I saw (or heard) from her. She gave us her address and I wanted to keep in touch with her, but either I've lost the address or it's buried somewhere in my boxes.

A few months ago, my friend called me and asked me if I still had her address because he wanted to check up on her...due to the disaster that happened in Japan earlier this year...

I really wish I had taken better care of her address...

I do know I have one picture of her in one of my albums. She was a really cool girl, and even though we weren't particularly close, I'd like to see how she's doing in life. She may not even remember me, but that's okay.

 

[Gingerbread Lesbian]

I have never had an exchange student live with me, nor have I lived in the house of an abroad student. To be honest, I wouldn't want to, the language barrier would be irritating and knowing my luck I'd be stuck with someone who ends up being a massive prick.

I have a group of French exchange students in my law class at uni who are here for the year, I've never really spoken to them since they kinda keep themselves within their own group. They see really clever at the corporate law type stuff since it's a big thing over in France but there's definitely a communication breakdown sometimes.