Language Tips

Our AFS kids will have traveled for more than 24 hours in many cases – they will be very tired.  They may not want to even hear English any more, much less try to understand or speak it!  Think about how you would be feeling after a 10 hour plane ride, several hours in an airport, a bus ride from Chicago, and then a night in a college dorm. 

However immersion is good and including them in family activities will keep their mind off their loneliness.

Speak slowly at first and keep eye contact so that you can tell if they are really understanding you.

This is especially important for the dads and kids – many of them tend to mumble! 

Avoid the use of slang, especially at first.  Slang is very hard to understand.

Many of the kids will try to fake it that they understand – they will smile at you and nod their heads, but in reality they haven’t understood a word.

At first, especially when you are talking about something important, ask them to tell you what they think you said.

Don’t try to discuss abstract concepts at first – many of your students won’t have a clue about what you are talking about.  Get the basic ground rules about things like shutting the bathroom door when you’re using it or how to use the microwave.  Leave things like curfew and calling home if they’re late to a couple days or weeks from now.

Start by making sure you can communicate about basic needs.  You’ll have plenty of time to move on to more interesting subjects as their language skills get better. 

Try playing some family games, like Monopoly or Charades.  Practice buying things at a store and having them make change and understand our money. 

Hand signals can be very light-hearted for everyone – we had one signal that said “I don’t understand.”  The person speaking would back up, slow down, and try it again.  We had another to be used especially at the end of the day.  That one said “I didn’t understand and I DON’T WANT TO!

For many students, the first 2 weeks will be difficult with the language.  After that, they will be surprised how quickly they pick up more language skills.  They will really start to be fluent in English when they find themselves dreaming in English.  

The first few weeks are the hardest because the kids aren’t in school yet.  If you are a member of a church or other organization with a youth group, you might try to get your student to start doing something with the youth group even if they aren’t interested in your church or organization.  The kids in the youth groups usually start doing something interesting this time of year like going to the Renaissance Festival or State Fair, and they are generally very accepting and welcoming of new students.  This will help your kids have some friends before school starts. 

Television is a great way to learn a language.  TV sitcoms and game shows are good.  Try watching some movies in English with English subtitles.  Don't use subtitles from the student's own language - use English subtitles!

The exchange students will quickly start making friends with one another.  Avoid having the kids speak to one another in their home language.  This is probably the most critical barrier in their language development.  When the students are speaking Spanish, German, Japanese or any other language with each other, they are keeping one foot in their own language and not learning English. 

The kids in the smaller schools without a lot of exchange students get better at English much more quickly because there’s no one to fall back on. 

Show interest in learning a little of their language.  Remember what they have taught you.  Start a notebook of vocabulary and parts of speech.  This shows them that you are interested in their language and culture and it will give you and your family a small understanding of what they are going through.  Keep a language dictionary on your coffee table and refer to it when you want to try to understand something. 

If you have young kids, you may have a children’s dictionary with pictures.  Richard Scarry and Dr Seuss books are great too.  The kids will really improve their English if they are reading for pleasure.  The Little House books can be a good introduction to language and history.  Your 3 year old niece can teach some words to your exchange student.  They will both love it! 

If you have friends with high school age kids, or if you know some neighborhood kids, invite them over for something fun.  Make ice cream, play board games, and listen to loud music.  They will all have fun, your student will make a few new friends, and the neighbor kids will probably invite your student to hang out with them.  If you help orchestrate some contacts for them at first, you will be giving them a head start before school starts and you will have some effect on who they are hanging out with for the rest of the year.  If they are having fun at your house, you will know what they are doing.