Home Stay: A Home away from Home…
Homestay is a familiar concept for most international students. FH international high school will here introduce the concept of homestay and its advantages in detail. “Homestay” provides foreign students with basic housing and living facilities (mostly local families) in the form of paid services in the country where they are studying, to improve their life quality to live in the country where they are studying.
Homestay has a long history in Canada. Its main purpose is to help foreign students solve the accommodation problem, improve their foreign language proficiency, promote understanding of the local foreign culture, and better integrate into society. International students may choose to stay with local families for a short time or a long time.
Some of the advantages of ‘Homestay’:
1.Safe, reliable and effective supervision:
Homestay can provide students with a safe, comfortable, friendly and reliable living environment. At the same time, the host parents will also take care of the students. In addition, for those younger students, the homestay parents will provide supervision and help in both life and study, so as to solve the worries of parents.
2.Learn about the local culture:
Host families can help new students to better understand the local customs. When students return home after a day’s study, they can communicate with their host parents and tell interesting stories about the day. This will not only help students better integrate into life in North America but also help them feel the warmth of families in a foreign country.
3.Improve your language skills:
Canadian host families can create a good English environment for students, help them to get familiar with the local accent, and effectively improve students’ speaking ability.
Some notes for homestay students:
1.Work and rest time:
Most Canadians are used to going to bed early and getting up early. Therefore, FH suggests that students should not have a voice chat with others or engage in loud activities after 10 pm, and should not come back late at night (unless they have communicated with the host parents in advance and obtained the consent), so as not to affect others’ rest.
2. Bathing:
In North America, people often take a shower, so students should better determine their own bath time as early as possible, to avoid time conflict. The time that student takes a bath should not be too long. the bathroom should also be cleaned afterward and the window should be left open for fresh air.
* important: Canadian local families use bathtubs a lot. The bath curtain in bathtub should be used (if bath curtain is double-deck, you need to put inner layer inside the bathtub); if it is in the form of a shower stall, it is also important to keep the door of the shower stall closed so as to avoid serious consequences caused by the overflow of water droplets.
3. Friends come to visit:
Under normal circumstances, students must obtain the consent of the host parents in advance to invite friends to visit. The student should not let friends come freely often, so as not to disturb the daily life of the host family. In addition, never have a friend over without the permission of the host parents.
4. Help with the housework:
The North American life advocates self-reliance and encourages children to do more housework, to help others. At the same time, active participation is the best expression of integration into the family and new life. International students should take part in some housework, such as setting the table before the meal and clearing the table after the meal, helping to clean the room, etc., which can not only improve their self-care ability but also make their boarding life more harmonious.
5. Tidiness:
Canadian families generally have a specific cleaning day. The whole family cleans the rooms, carpet dust, vacuum-cleaning, etc. At this time, boarding students also need to be responsible for their own room, tidy up their own things. Of course, in daily life, students also need to keep the room as clean and tidy as possible, to develop excellent self-care ability.
FH and the host family:
In terms of life, FH will arrange safe, reliable and suitable host families for students to ensure their physical and mental health and development. At present, there are a large number of host families cooperating with FH, and every host family has been inspected and interviewed by our school’s staff, and they all have good quality and service. The host parents not only take it as their responsibility to provide accommodation and three meals a day but also take care of the students and supervise students’ studies and lives so that the overseas students can feel the warmth and care far away from home.
An insight into Homestays provided by FH International High School:
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