This evening, EC Montreal held its homestay workshop for new hosts. A world of thanks goes out to the EC Montreal team for a very successful event! We gave our homestays an orange carpet welcome! We checked them in and gave them tours of our facilities. We had refreshments available for them as they mingled and talked to each other about their excitement to host! We had our student ambassadors helping to check in the hosts and accompany them to the lounge.
The families were delighted to have their rooms already booked and it really helped us get our allocations done. We have done this in the past and it always works out beautifully. We find that the hosts pay more attention during the presentations when they know they have a student scheduled to arrive!
I gave the welcome greeting and talked to them about the Orange Carpet Experience. I showed them the Homestay page and shared the Orange Carpet video. I introduced all the guest speakers. First up was our student, Regina Garcia from Mexico. She is participating in our French programme and living with a homestay family. She spoke about her experience and what are the most important qualities in a homestay host. It is such a powerful message coming directly from one of our international students. The homestays were so impressed with her level English and how she was able express herself! She was able to share her experience from both EC Vancouver and EC Montreal.
Next, I introduced one of our homestay hosts and Homestay Recruiter, Valerie Clayton. She has been hosting students for EC Montreal since 2007! She talked about her experience hosting and how she has hosted students as young as 15 and as old as 75! She was incredible! Of all the speakers, she had the most questions asked to her!
We then heard from our English teacher, Don. Don has been teaching at EC since 2003. He is used to teaching beginner students, so we thought it would be great for him to lead a workshop on communicating with lower-level students.
The next presentation came from our Young Learners Programme Manager, Taylor. Taylor gave a presentation about the teen programme.
We gave all the new hosts a kit that included the welcome letters, pre-stamped EC branded postcards that they can give to their students, so they could write to their parents back home as well as activity calendars.
Lastly, and most importantly, we presented on the fine details of the homestay programme. How placements are made, payments, arrivals and departures, changes, cancellations and the qualities of an ideal host!
All the presenters did a stellar job! I am so proud of the team! The hosts left really prepared and impressed with EC. They kept commenting on how thorough our presentations were and how we covered so many different views of the accommodation service.
We ended the evening with a raffle prize. The winner was so excited!
We are confident our new hosts will welcome our EC Montreal students to their homes with open arms!
Did you know that EC Montreal offers DELF/ DALF Preparation Courses in Montreal?