2008 Kai Home Stay Program

Comments from students

What was your purpose in choosing to participate in Kai Home Stay Program?

• To have more chance to talk Japanese, in daily life situations.
• To know Japanese culture better.
• To live in a real Japanese family and know about it.
• To learn about Japanese day-to-day way of life.
• Being able to practice my Japanese and experience Japanese culture up close.

Did home stay fulfill your needs and/or help you reach your goals?

• Yes, all of them.
• Yes, a lot.  I’m very glad with them.
• Yes! 100%!

Please talk about your satisfaction with KAI Home Stay Program.

• KAI school was very good at taking care of my stay, providing me all information and support. Staying in a family was a wonderful experience. Only "con" the distance and transportation cost.
  
The number of host families living close to KAI (within 30 minutes) is limited at the moment. We are trying our best to have more families living close by.
• They were very kind, polite, and helped us a lot.
• Our family was excellent and they attended us very well.
• Everything was perfect.My family didn’t put me under pressure and was very helpful and kind.A perfect host family!!

Do you have any suggestions for KAI Home Stay Program?

• All was perfect, the staffs great and patient in assisting me.Maybe there should be a wider choice of families (even if mine was perfect!).
  
During some seasons, we have more people applying for home stay. Please send us your application well in advance if you wish to have more choice of families.
• I think it is excellent as it is now. Very good work. Arigatoo!

Host Family

Were you able to adequately communicate with your host family?

• My Japanese is very poor, but my family could speak English very well so I didn’t have problems at all.They talked to me in Japanese and if necessary they helped with English.
• Yes.
• Yes. No problems at all.
• Yes, very well (English + Japanese).

How was your living environment?

• Very good, clean, comfortable, and friendly.
• Excellent!!
• It was very good!

How were the meals?

• Meals were delicious!! I could not expect more.
• Yes, the best meals.
• Yes, very good meals. Also I liked Japanese food a lot.
• Yes, Japanese style and very yummy!!

Do you have any suggestions on how your host family might improve?

• They are perfect.
• I think they can’t be better.
• No, because they are perfect!

Others

Did you have fun or interesting experience with your host family?

• Every dinner was fun with them.
• Our multi-language conversations, mixing a lot of languages.  They were very fun and interesting.
• Dinner every evening – making jokes and talking about Japanese culture.

What were the advantages of doing a home stay?

• I had more chance to talk Japanese.
• Practicing Japanese everyday.
• A lot of advantages.  We spoke Japanese everyday, so we could practice all the time.
• You can practice your Japanese at home.

Do you have any suggestions for future home stay students?

• Read about Japanese etiquette and traditional family rules, so that a student can respect these. Students should bring lots of gifts!
  
It is of course not a problem if you don't have gifts for the family.
• Maybe there should be an easy web-page or forum for student-contact, where the students could post their impressions and their advices to future students.
  
We will look into creating such a space on our website.