<p>Spend time with international students at your college or at a nearby college. You will never get a chance to talk to so many people from so many different countries who all speak fluent English. </p>
<p>If your college offers an international residential college, consider living there for a year. They often welcome American students, and the international students often appreciate having someone nearby who can help explain how things work in the US.</p>
<p>It sounds like you really WANT to do the lab, for both personal and academic reasons. So go for it, but try to maximize the experience: while at the lab, try to speak the local language exclusively. Ask that others speak it to you and only resort to English when absolutely necessary. Invite co-workers for an evening out to socialize and ‘integrate’ in a personal, rather than professional, way. Organize something fun as a group off hours - like a soccer or baseball game with your co-workers, possibly with other students in your language course. Make this as much as a social opportunity as it is a learning/academic opportunity.</p>
<p>I’d try to meet people other than students, students’ families for example, so you can visit in homes of people in that country. Read a lot about the culture in advance so you’re less likely to make etiquette mistakes. If appropriate to that culture, take little gifts along from the United States in case you stay in families’ homes.</p>
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No! No! No! If you are taking an intensive language program the only way you will achieve fluency is by avoiding English as much as possible. It’s the one problem with working in a lab (which otherwise I think is fine), while chitchat will probably be in the language of the country, most papers are written in English and scientists will conduct things like journal clubs in English. (At least this was dh’s experience in Germany - and it was a good thing since he’d only had one semester of German on going in.) I highly recommend finding things to do locally. My brothers for example joined a local chorus when they spent a gap year in France. I can’t sing, but took art classes. Travel is good, but there is also something to getting to know the town/city where you are at a deeper level than the ordinary tourist. (Speaking as someone who spent a gap year in France and five years in Munich when dh went there for a post doctoral fellowship.)</p>
<p>I think your biggest reason for the lab work is to make the switch without dealing with the home lab hassles. If you want to volunteer somewhere for 20 hours, there will certainly be some non-profit organizations in that area who would love to have your help too. This is another way to connect with locals and see different aspects of your host country in a new light. If you’re going to spend all day in language classes and all evening in the lab, what’s the point of leaving the US? </p>
<p>You should be using your newly acquired language skills as much as possible outside the classroom to enhance your studies. Being cooped up in the lab with people who’ll most likely be speaking English to you is going to interfere with having a great language immersion experience. It sounds like you’re trying to stick with a safe and familiar routine as much as possible. Get out of the lab and make the whole language immersion part of your trip your main focus! Isn’t that the reason you’re REALLY going over there for?</p>
<p>Interact with the locals in a meaningful way. Learn about the local art, music, architecture, film, theater. Participate directly in the local cultural life. Learn to chat with people in the language you are studying. Go to concerts. Try a new food everyday. Learn how to cook what you like by asking a local restaurateur how something is made. Ask about the local holidays. Participate in local celebrations. Try more new food. Go to another concert. If you don’t like music…keep going to concerts till you do. Really dive into it. You can never really learn a language until you study and live it “in situ”.</p>
<p>I know kids that have gone to language programs in Asia and wound up starring in TV soap operas, or became translators for visiting US delegations, or wound up as stringers for CNN. I think the problem is that you can’t anticipate the opportunities you’re going to be given, and if you get yourself too structured, you’ll miss them.</p>