<p>I mentioned in another thread that my DD (H.S. Sophomore) is looking to increase fluency in Spanish (and is interested in becoming a language teacher). Some folks gave me some great program suggestions, but right now finances are very tight and I'm not sure these things are affordable.</p>
<p>I recently met someone who is from Mexico and has offered to have my DD stay with her family, who don't speak English. Her mother would look into something that my DD could do while there..volunteer or take a class...not really sure about that part yet. I would pay her family and would have to get my daughter there - but the whole thing would be an interesting experience and much less expensive than these formal programs (and she doesn't need the fancy travel that comes with some of those programs either).</p>
<p>However, I'm wondering if it's a good idea to send my DD to a foreign country without the "support" of a defined program - maybe I'm being too paranoid so I'm seeking input. The family does not live within walking distance of anything so the mom would have to drive my DD wherever she needs to go. The family does not speak English but my DD's Spanish is pretty good. One other roadblock might be the fact that whatever she does with her time down there might not be structured the way it would be through an official program.</p>
<p>The family lives in Leon, Guanajato. Apparently they have had boarders before, but only male college students who are from other parts of Mexico. </p>
<p>You should check out the Rotary Youth Exchange Program. Their costs are very reasonable and the families well vetted. There is an entire Rotary club not just the host families involved to make the experience safe, worthwhile and fun. We are now sending a second daughter on the exchange. The cost is $4500 for the entire year which includes the plane ticket. Some sponsor clubs defray part of the expenses (right now the club sponsoring our daughter is paying $2000 of the fee). The hosting club pays a monthly stipend for spending money to the student of about 75 to 100 dollars. It is actually less expensive than if the student stays home.
So much can happen with a teen in a foreign country I would hesitate to do what you are proposing.</p>
<p>Well, if the mom is motivated and has the time to spend with your D taking her places and introducing her to people it could be fantastic. Or the mom could be overwhelmed with her own life right now and not interested in managing the life of a teenager for the summer. Their neighborhood could be filled with nice kids who are happy to hang out with an American and speak Spanish to her, or the neighborhood could be mostly babies and their moms during the day with nobody around for interaction.</p>
<p>You don’t know. I’m sure these people are lovely but you’ve got no way of course-correcting (other than to bring your D home early) if the experience turns into a lot of sitting around watching Spanish language TV (which your D can do from your own living room.)</p>
<p>A neighbor of mine sent her kid on a language exchange program last year, and after the program ended, the kid spent a week with the neighbors former college roommate. The mother was ballistic- kid never left the apartment in a week. The mother expected the roommate to be a one-woman tour program; take time off from her own job to show the D “how real people live” and some local color. </p>
<p>Well, how do you tell someone that their idea of hospitality is falling short??? And even when there’s money involved, as in your case- your D may be perfectly happy to watch TV all day if that’s what the host family has suggested as entertainment, but what recourse do you have? Insist the mom take your D places she doesn’t take her own kids???</p>
<p>Rotary also has a short term summer exchange program that you pay the airfare, a $65 app fee and $189 3 month insurance policy. I don’t think you can do this any cheaper and still be safe.</p>
<p>Spanish immersion is probably easier than most. Subscribe to the Spanish version of People or other magazine. Watch Spanish television. Rent Spanish movies. Listen to Spanish radio (news particularly). </p>
<p>When my parents moved to the US as adults, they spent of a lot of time watching television and movies and listening to the radio. </p>
<p>She won’t have quite the speaking immersion that she might have in Mexico, but personally, I’d never send a young girl to another family in an informal exchange (no one to call if things go wrong, no one to intervene with local authorities should there be an issue, no one watching out specifically for her safety). Too many possibilities of negative outcomes.</p>
<p>To practice speaking, perhaps she could hire a native Spanish speaker just to chat for a couple of hours a week.</p>
<p>Depending on where you live, perhaps your D could volunteer at a community health center as an interpreter, to get experience and more fluency? They tend to have a lot of patient speaking many languages, including many hispanic speakers and she could be useful while improving her fluency. She could also watch Spanish programs with English subtitles. I would be reluctant to send a young person into an informal program, as it could turn out to be far less than you may expect. Have heard good things about the Rotary program, including funding assistance.</p>
<p>Maybe try a formal exchange program, like “Youth For Understanding” or “AFS”.
We just hosted a German exchange student last year through Youth For Understanding.
This program is not one of those glorified travel opportunity, but where the student lives with a host family for a year and goes to high school.
A benefit of a formal program is that there is someone checking up on your student and making sure all is well. We had a volunteer that would meet with our student monthly and there were orientations to make sure students and host families knew what to expect.</p>
<p>YFU does have summer programs where you stay with a family.I am not sure of the costs, but they do have scholarship.</p>
<p>I think your idea is worth looking into. The fact that it’s not within walking distance is an issue, so you really have to make sure that the family really is on board with being a chauffeur and making this an experience worth having. Some people have had bad experiences with vetted programs as well, sometimes you just get unlucky. My older son had two terrible families the summer he was in Jordan. It turned out the program had decent placements during the school year, but there summer program was run by someone who was not very good. It also turned out because of cultural issues, it was very hard to board single young men with a family. His first family was Christian and spoke English at home (not the point of the homestay!) the second housed him in a rooftop room separate from the apartment and fed him inadequately and separately from the family. I don’t think you’ll have that experience, but you’ll need to ask lots of questions and make sure your daughter will speak up if things aren’t going well.</p>
<p>You are a more trusting person than I am. While I’m sure this person is perfectly nice, I would be hesitant - at best - to send my child to live with someone I “recently met.”</p>
<p>I should mention that even though I “recently met” this person, my spouse and I went to graduate school with her husband. They have children and now live in our town, and my impression is that she comes from a somewhat well-off family. She told me that her mom would be “thrilled to have a girl around again.” Her mom also has a hobby that is the same as one of my daughter’s hobbies. She had already talked to her mom before she broached the idea to me. So that all seemed okay…but still, the points made above are all very valid and I do worry. I personally had a bad exchange experience a thousand years ago, and I had to be moved very suddenly - but I think with some exchange programs, the families are in it for the extra money and so you don’t know what that means for your kid. This family doesn’t appear to need that - their daughter and her husband are very well-off (again, I’m making a lot of assumptions so maybe they are not all correct). I was recently looking into a program in another country, and as I talked to some parents, there were many mentions of their kids living in friendly, albeit poor, homes, but with pregnant 15 year olds or teens with kids. That is another side to the exchange experience - some would say that it’s important for kids to understand what it’s like in poor and undereducated populations - but I’m not sure I’m looking for that - I think I might prefer her to experience another culture where it’s not all about the poverty. Some of my Latin American friends have said that with some of these programs, they feel like the kids start to think of all of Latin America as poverty stricken and undereducated, and of course it isn’t like that.</p>
<p>So these are just some random thoughts. Would love as much input as you all have.</p>
<p>My 10th-grade daughter is studying in Cadiz, Spain next semester through the ciee program. I have to tell you, there is more to an exchange program than meets the eye. We have already met with ciee employees in person three times, and had an online orientation session tonight. The host families are unpaid volunteers, so they’re not in it for the money. There is a local coordinator in each town where ciee kids are studying. The kids will have a second orientation in Boston the day before they fly to Spain with a chaperone. When they reach Barcelona, they will have a THIRD orientation and then do some sightseeing for a couple of days (the expensive excursions are separate, and the kids don’t have to sign up for those - my daughter is not). A staff member will put each student on the train, and the host family will be waiting on the platform at the other end.</p>
<p>If there is a problem the local coordinator can’t fix, ciee will get involved. They have an emergency phone line the kids can call 24/7.</p>
<p>ciee staff members spend a lot of time talking to the kids about culture shock. They give them strategies for dealing with it. They also tell them to call or Skype home only once a week, or homesickness will get to them.</p>
<p>They also spend a lot of time explaining the Spanish educational system - what the grading is like, how they’ll be placed, teacher’s expectations, etc.</p>
<p>I could go on and on and on. Studying abroad is MUCH more than just finding a home for the student to stay. After what I’ve learned the last couple of months, I would ONLY send my child through a reputable program. ciee has been around since the late 1940s. I have nothing but good to say about them.</p>
<p>Our D got a job as an au pair in France (Normandy) the summer between high school and college - her own private language immersion program! There was no formal group; D got the job through an employment service called ABC families, They’re based in London. Prior to her departure, D, H and I corresponded with the grandmother of the child (grandma did the hiring) via email and phone. She was a lovely woman. The daughter (i.e. the child’s mom) was a little odd!
Everything worked out fine, though. Cell phones and skype made be feel (perhaps falsely) secure. We felt D had enough sense to get help either from us or locally if something went badly wrong. Things did go slightly wrong - D developed a tooth infection while there, but the family was responsible and helpful in getting her the antibiotics our dentist in NYC prescribed.
D stayed for six weeks and came back speaking near flawless French. (she’d studied it previously.)
I’m on the more trusting end of the scale, I guess. And our D was older than yours is. And the only cost was the plane ticket - a huge plus!</p>
<p>“Apparently they have had boarders before, but only male college students who are from other parts of Mexico.”</p>
<p>I only have sons but if I had a daughter I would be very careful about sending her to a place without a defined program. Bad things can happen. Are there going to be any male college students or even male high school students living in the house while she is there?</p>
<p>I can see both sides - it would be nice for your daughter to have a true immersion experience, but on the other hand she is still quite young to be going on a trip like this that is not supervised by an organization. Honestly, I have a son who is a HS sophomore and I don’t think that I would send him under these parameters. Would your daughter consider applying to summer programs that offer scholarships? There are also private scholarships to study abroad that she could apply for (you can search for them online). Also, many of the study abroad programs give the students suggestions on how to do their own fund raising to help pay for the trip. She could possibly continue to take Spanish lessons while she plans for a summer trip for the summer after her junior year, which would also give you all more time to find ways to fund it.</p>
<p>Where do you live? Is there a population of Spanish speaking people near you? </p>
<p>Not exactly immersion, but a cheap way to get more exposure to Spanish would be to become involved with the local Spanish speaking community. Easy for me to say here in south Texas.</p>
<p>One other thing to mention - health care and similar issues. What about water? Even in tourist areas, Americans become ill from drinking beverages with ice cubes made of non-bottled water (my daughter did)! Sanitation & food safety differs in various places, and locals may be used to things that Americans are not. “Don’t drink the water” isn’t just the name of a Woody Allen film.</p>