Does anyone else here host international students? We have our second one coming tomorrow, and staying probably twelve weeks. We’ve got friends who have hosted for several years, and have had mostly really good experiences with it. I’ve got the room cleaned, and have dinners prepped for the next few days. We’re set.
Our first was a Saudi guy, very polite, good with our two kids. He was great, although we learned within the first three days that we’re going to have to set download limits, because he was doing about 35G a day. Apparently in the Middle East they don’t have download limits. He was really, really into movies.
So, are there any other Dopers who have hosted? How did it work for you? What were your students like, where were they from, what were the frustrating or fun things that happened?
There’s an English language school not far from our house and they arrange home stays with local families (for money). We’ve hosted about a dozen students, each time for about a month, mostly Japanese and Brazilian women.
Most of the time our guests have been polite and easygoing, but I suspect that some of them aren’t that crazy about the food we serve.
One time we had a Japanese guy staying with us and he would use our washing machine every single day. We politely asked him to stop doing laundry so often and he seemed to agree, but he kept doing it. Finally we asked him less politely to stop doing it so frequently and he confessed that he only brought two pairs of underwear with him. Dude, quit being a cheapskate and buy more gitch.
There was a Brazilian woman staying who was kind of high strung. At one point she got an upset stomach and complained to the school that we were trying to poison her or something (we only heard about this second hand). They moved her to a different house.
How timely! We’ll be doing this for the first time, next spring, for about 8 weeks. This will be a young college-age student. From other families that have hosted girls from this same school, the lesson seems to be to find structured things for them to do (they don’t attend classes while here).
I know last year, some of the girls who participated (with a friend in Australia) were at a bit of a loss - shut themselves off a bit, didn’t socialize with the family, and were quite homesick. Hence the suggestion to find some kind of formal activity for at least part of their time.
I think our situation is different from what either of you has described so far, but it’ll be a learning experience for all of us.
The college we’re doing homestay for has daily classes and organizes tourist-y events and things. We have to provide things for them to eat for breakfast and lunch, and make dinner and at least mostly be here all together for it.
The new guy seems very nice, very young, and it’s fun to have to explain all the parts of life here that we don’t normally think about (“This is the tea cozy. It’s frigging cold here, so the tea wears a jacket.” “This, here, is the milk. You’re in Canada. It comes in bags.”)
When I was a kid, my family had a number of foreign exchange students. I know we had one from Mexico and two or three Japanese ones. I don’t remember much. Apparently the Japanese girl was really really shy and my mom never saw her unmentionables when she was doing laundry because she’d hand wash them.
We had a Spanish guy stay with us once and he was surprised to see a rabbit running through our backyard. He said that in Spain, an urban rabbit would last about 5 minutes before it became someone’s lunch.
Is it? Do you mind me asking what you get paid to do something like this? I suppose only “families” can participate - they wouldn’t let a single person (especially a single man) host someone since rape and murder would be the inevitable result, right?
I don’t know about the family requirement, but we get paid about $700 per month for a room plus breakfast and supper. We’ve only had one student ask for lunch as well – I think that’s an extra $50 or something. Occasionally we have two students staying at once, so that’s $1400 per month, which isn’t peanuts.
The home stay organizers are pretty flexible. For instance, they don’t place Japanese students with a Japanese-speaking family; part of the home stay experience is that they’re supposed to be practicing English. So maybe they wouldn’t place a young girl with a single guy, but they might put a guy with a guy. I’m not sure exactly how it works.
I don’t know about the family requirements. I’m kind of amazed that they okayed us, since we have two small, loud kids, but so far our homestays have been fine with small children. We know an older couple that hosts up to three at a time, and a single lady down the street who does it, too.
What they were really concerned about in the interview was that the room was nice, there would be a decent dinner every night, and that we’d talk to the students and let them practice their English.
It’s $720/month room and board. I wish we had enough space for a double room, since it would completely cover our rent, but we don’t.
It’s sporadic and by availability, not a constant stream in and out. If you don’t specify whether you want boys or girls I’m told you normally get sent boys, because people strongly prefer girls. We don’t care, so so far we’ve gotten boys.
