Regina Garcia’s Tips to New EC Montreal Homestay Hosts!
EC Montreal welcomes new hosts to the accommodation programme every year. These new hosts must attend a workshop at the school prior to hosting. We present to them the programme as well as EC’s customer service strategy. It is important for us to give a complete overview of EC to our hosts so we always include a presentation from a teacher, a current homestay host and a student. It sends a powerful message to our hosts to hear directly from one of our international students – to hear what they expect from a homestay host. One of our young students, Regina Garcia, from Mexico, volunteered to present to our new hosts. Here is what she had to say about her experience including her Do’s and Don’ts when hosting: My name is Regina Garcia, I am from México and I am 17 years old. My exchange programme journey started in Vancouver, I got there with the goal of being more independent, responsible, to expand myself as a person, and of course to improve my English. I stayed there for 6 months and arrived in Montreal in February to learn French. Both cities have offered me distinct learnings and memories. This is just a small essay in which I hope to help you to understand the dynamics on how to create an environment where homestay hosts and students can coexist as a family. Being so far from home can be overwhelming, so we just want to feel that we have someone waiting for us with open arms when we get back to school, we want to grow our understanding of the world and its peoples and the lifestyle as well, so communication is a must, it’s going to help us to improve our English/French skills We want orientation in our journey, to … Read more