Family Stay

Language & Friendship believes that a family stay is an essential component of an educational program abroad. It gives students the wonderful opportunity to be immersed in the language and culture in a personal way. Even though the family stay is short, it’s a valuable experience in growth and self-reliance, and a chance to build a friendship that can last a lifetime.

Family stays are organized by teachers and coordinators abroad who are personal friends of Language & Friendship staff. We are fortunate to have had many years of experience building relationships with dedicated teachers abroad who, like the teachers we work with here, want their students and communities to have international friendships that broaden their horizons, increase cultural understanding and promote support of language study.

Most of our groups stay with host families for 5 to 10 days, and some choose longer stays. Our coordinators personally meet with each of the host families, and they are dedicated to providing a good experience for each student and family. Language & Friendship provides extensive materials to host families and to students to help them prepare for an enriching experience. Teachers receive situational dialogues to help students practice their communication skills, and the opportunity for students to put these skills to use in a family environment is truly rewarding.

Individual Immersion: Each student has his/her own host family in order to have a more beneficial experience. If two American students were together in a host family, they would speak English with each other and would not connect as well with their new family, defeating the purpose of the program. (Additionally, houses and cars are usually not large enough for two additional people.) An individual experience allows students to really practice the language and become a part of the family who is looking forward also to creating a new friendship.

While we cannot guarantee there will never be a problem or a challenging situation, we can confidently assure you that we take our responsibility very seriously, and we are always available for support and guidance. In the very few cases where a student has difficulty adapting, it’s nearly always a case of misunderstanding that is cleared up when the student’s teacher and the local teacher/coordinator talk with the student and host family.

Language & Friendship has been providing travel programs with a family-stay component since 1988. Our success is best reflected in the feedback of students and parents, and especially the teachers who continue time after time to have us organize their programs.  

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family stay