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 adapt to the city, the public transport and the culture.
- Let us know the rules since day one, we are not mind readers, its best to establish the limits and respect so we can learn how to obey them.
- Keep in mind that besides being here for an academic purpose, we are also here to have fun, to live, to get to know a whole new world and create as many memories as we can, that including making mistakes, so there is a difference between caring for us and holding us back, learn how to balance it.
- Keep in touch, you may have lived with your student for a short period of time or you think that there is nothing to say, but we appreciate the gesture of being remembered.
- We need privacy, there is no reason why you should ever enter to our room, let alone to touch or move around our personal stuffs and always knock the door.
- Although I am grateful for the extra help, let us help you too! Let us have our independence. It helps us to learn how to be responsible in terms of cooking or doing laundry or teaching us how to do certain things that will help us in the future.
- Constructive feedback is necessary for both sides, in cases where the homestay and the student are not being compatible, it is mandatory to have an agreement of what the problem is and how to fix it, so everybody can benefit, there is no point to ever be mean or disrespectful, that will only provoke discontent and a bad vibe all around.
- The food should be something primordial and hosts should provide healthy and adequate food, in accordance with the agreed meal plan.
- Like I said before, being in Vancouver and Montreal were 2 extremely different environments when it comes to the homestay, I have learned a lot from both sides, I also have made mistakes, I had a different relationship with both of my homestays and at the end of it I can conclude that they were both my homes.
The homestay experience will help us all to grow more as a person and get us closer to our main goal of taking the gift of having a family and the ability to create it.
Study English at EC Montreal and you can meet wonderful hosts and students like Regina!