International Student year comes to a close

The Chinese international student who has been living with our family for the past 11 months will be heading home in 2 weeks.  It has been a wonderful experience and I recommend it to any family that is looking to broaden their knowledge of another culture and giving a student the opportunity of a lifetime.

Here are some lessons that we have taken away from this experience:
-Acclimating to the new time zone is hard, it will take 2 weeks for the student to adjust.
-Making friends is challenging at the beginning, do not force your biological children and the new student to "be friends"  let that happen naturally or not at all, living with someone is more like a sibling relationship which does not often lend itself to the friendship role.
-Be consistent with your lifestyle.  If you did not eat vegetables with each meal, don't try and start now because you think it is "what you are supposed to do".  It will exhaust you and make the homestay seem unnatural.
-Do not put your Western culture norms on the student.  Allow them to keep the part of themselves that will ultimately help them succeed throughout the year.  ( Our student did not shower every day and we learned to adjust to that.)
- Do allow your student to have time for things that remind them of home.  Our student missed Chinese food ( not Panda Express) so we found a Chinese market and made sure we always stocked food that he liked.  We also added a chop stick category to our silverware drawer.  These things helped a little bit with the culture shock.
- Encourage your student to try new things.  They are in the states to have the experience.  Our student did not like American breakfast foods.  No eggs and bacon, no biscuits, definitely not any cereals ( we had him try at least 10 brands over the year and he said they were all too sweet) so we didn't make him eat breakfast before school. (He appreciated the extra sleep time in the morning.)
- Try to learn a few words of their language.  Even the most basic words will show your student you are trying and you understand how hard it can be to learn something new.
-School is a priority.  That is the entire reason the student's parents paid for them to come to America.  - Homework is going to be awkward.  The student may not want to bother you for help with their assignments so ask them.  The pressure of being here coupled with the pressure to do well in school can be overwhelming for an international student.  We implemented a daily chart that he had the teachers fill out so that we knew his daily assignments.  This alleviated the stress from him (if he didn't understand) and guaranteed that he would get his homework done.  ( We learned this lesson a bit too late after he failed the first quarter of classes due to language barriers.)
-Stay in communication with the placement agency.  If things are not going well, talk to the agency who placed the student with you.  The company places children for a living, they are very adept at identifying bumps in the road and helping to solve them.  Don't wait until things are bad and there are misunderstandings and you are ready to send the kid back, let the agency know if something is not going well, ask for help solving it.
-Take pictures.  This is a unique experience for your family, include the student in family photo's so you can look back on that time and remember the good times.  "remember the year we had the Chinese student, remember how we all learned to use chop sticks that year."
-Teenagers are the same across cultural lines.  Boy/girl troubles will happen, Teenagers will stay up too late playing video games.  Enforce the same rules you would with your own children.  (Electronics went off at 9pm, we had trouble with this concept so we began turning off the internet each night at 9, the lesson was learned pretty quickly.)
-Broaden the student's experience, yes they are in America to go to school and learn English, but when they go home, their friends and family are going to know what it is really like.  Take them on outings, to restaurants, to cultural events, on road trips.  These are the memories that your student will take back home with them.  (Even if they don't seem eager to attend these things, take them any way)
-Know what you  are getting in to.  If your family likes to travel abroad several times a year, or if you are called away on business 1 weekend each month, decide if hosting an international student is really something will work for your family.  (Students here on an international school Visa are not allowed to leave the country and should not be pulled out of school because your family wants to go cross country in a motor home for a month.)
-Do not let the allure of the monthly stipend be a deciding factor in being a host family.  Having an additional person in your home is costly and all it takes is a few episodes of backing up the toilet and flooding the downstairs carpet (this happened twice) and the monthly stipend funds are used up with plumber and carpet cleaning.  You have to do this because you want to make a difference in the life of a child.

Enjoy your student and enjoy the time you will get to spend with them, a year has gone quickly.  I look forward to next year when he comes back.  (We have also decided to become a host family to a girl as well).  The decision to have 2 of my own teenagers and add in 2 additional teenagers may very well not be the most rational decision I have made, but I wouldn't have it any other way!

Sitting and Standing

My little cat decided that she couldn't see out the door so she solved that problem

National Novel Writing Month has begun

                                             “Image courtesy of National Novel Writing Month.”

I have accepted the challenge this year, I am 10,245 words in and my fingers are typing furiously.  I had an outline of the story I am writing in my head and so this has been an easy start.  The only downside is that I have 2 other stories in my head that have to be put on the back burner this month while I focus on the 50,000 word task at hand.  
For all you writers out there, get started, you have 25 days left.  

American Candy

In my ESL class today I gave them an assignment to write about American Candy.  The results were much more humorous than I anticipated.

KitKat

It is 2 pieces of bread with chocolate over it

Skittles

They taste like fruit, but not the outside of fruit

Skittles

They taste like fruit, I have a small cousin that cries a lot, I think I should feed her this so she won’t cry.

Gummy Worms

They are sour and two colors, like ombre

Whoppers

They are round and taste a little like chocolate and a little like Starbucks

M&M's

They taste like chupa chup candy that we have in Vietnam.  They bring me a lot of happiness

4 sets of keys

I have 4 sets of keys
one for home
one for office
one for school
one for off site work

My life has become a series of keys
pull into my driveway- keys connected to car will get me into the house
pull into office- pick up keys with red band to get me into my office
pull into school- pick up keys with flashlight keychain to get me into my classroom
pull into off site work- pick up keys with the clip to get me in the office

Only today did I notice how much my life revolves around keys
attempted to put office keys into school lock (fail)
carried home key to my office then had to dig through my purse to correct this error

I have begun to pick up keys and hold them in my lap as I am driving so I know where I am going
office keys get the most fiddling with, red springy band allows me to fidget
school keys are the heaviest, key chain creates this problem, not the keys
off site work keys are the most convenient to carry (the clip) but there are many keys on this key chain that I don't know what they go to
home keys are the most valuable

When did I start carrying keys?  16 when I started driving.
Oh I long for the first 15 years where I could roam free without the responsibility of keys, well actually I would not trade those days for the ones I have now.

With keys, comes great responsibility.  They say, "I am trustworthy"  " I can be trusted to protect all that is inside these locked doors"

Keys have become an integral part of my life, locking and unlocking things as I choose.

Keep
Everything
You have
Safe

International Student-Language Barrier Issues

The international student staying in my home this year is doing well.  He stays in his room a lot, but lets be honest, if I didn't speak the language and it gave me a headache trying to figure out what people were saying every minute of every day, I would probably stay in my room as well.

We have had several language issue barriers which have created awkward moments (which are now humorous enough to share.)

The hair cutting incident.

He has been in our home for a month and his hair is getting kind of long so I asked him (through Google Translator).  " do you want to get a haircut".

He said "ok" and so I set up the appointment.

I picked him up one afternoon to go get a haircut and as we were driving he had his translator app say "no scissors"

I said, "you don't want scissors"

"No"

"Do you want clippers" and I made the sound and ran an imaginary clippers across my head

"NO"

"What do you want?"

Back to the translator  "No haircut"

What?  I thought you said you wanted a haircut?

Translator app  "You say I must get haircut"

"Must" as in YOU HAVE NO CHOICE!  That is what the poor kid thought I said.  Stinking Google Translator.  Because he is a respectful boy, he was going to do it.

Well at this point we are almost at the haircutting place so I took him in and introduced him to my hair stylist and let him know that there had been a miscommunication so we were just coming to make introductions.  My international student said that he would let me know when he needed a haircut.

We left and drove home in silence.  Well that was awkward.  I talked to him about the miscommunication and we agreed that the word Like was a better word for him to understand.

Would you like to get your hair cut?

International Student starts school

   It has been 2 full months of having a 15 year old International student in our home.  The first month was filled with Google translator and sign language to communicate.  He has done really well with learning how to communicate with us.
  The second month began the start of school.  Now luckily, we send our kids (and new international student) to a private school that focuses on International students.  So he was not the only Chinese speaking boy in a school full of English kids.  He had people he could communicate with.  So how is school going for him?  Not well.
   While he has learned the routines of our household, even learned to predict what I will say so he can translate it in his head.  He has not adjusted to school life very well.  I saw him sitting with another Chinese boy on the first day and I asked him if he made a friend.  He didn't know the boys name so I told him to introduce himself the next day and make a friend.  (It has been 3 weeks and he still doesn't know that kids name.)  Now onto classes.
   He is shuffling around to the 7 periods he was assigned, He got that part down, which classroom to go to when the bell rings.  But he doesn't bring home very much homework, I think because he doesn't understand what the teachers are saying so he misses big gaps.  The only homework I have helped him on is Spelling.  He brought home his first spelling list and it was words like.  Immeasurable, Improbable, Impoverished.  WHAT?  Those are the kind of words that a 1st year English student is assigned?  Well my son (who is in the same grade and same class) brought home the same list.  It began to make sense.  10th grade Spelling words, no adjustment for non-English speakers.  So I helped him learn how to spell them, he still failed the first quiz.
    Week 2 spelling words (I before E except after C rules).  Really?  Although these words were easier to spell, they were almost more confusing.   Receive and Receipt spelled with and EI while Grieve and Achieve are spelled IE.  Then we got to the word Beige, this does not follow the rule so how will he learn to put it into a category?  I couldn't even begin to explain to him the word Beige, I gave up and told him to just learn to spell it.  As the Host Family for this student, I made him learn how to spell it rather than learn the meaning, if this 15 year old boy ever needs to describe that color, I give him full permission to just say TAN!