Today, we will took a look at a homestay that will not betray your expectations when it comes to raising your communication ability: Ron’s.
Host Name: Ron Calandan
Family Members: Host Father, Host Mother, Host Mother’s Parents, Three Dogs
Occupation: Host Father is an architect, Host Mother is a Nurse
About the House: American style home, four rooms plus a living room, dining room, and a kitchen
Location: Carson City in Los Angeles
Distance from School: 45 minutes from GEOS, 50 minutes from LSI
Most Recommended For: People who really want to focus on communicating with their host family.
Not recommended for: People who like to stay up late or stay up all night
Rob’s Homestay: The Positives
- Communicative ability improves substantially.
- Delicious cooking.
- You can experience American culture.
Don’t go if…
- You often stay up late.
- You hate dogs.
So you want to improve your communication skills no matter what…
When you do a homestay at Ron’s, you will see your communication skills improve substantially within a month. This is because during breakfast, dinner, and on the weekends, Ron and his family will often start up conversations with you. Ron is also a self-employed architect, and he lives a somewhat semi retired lifestyle.
Therefore, you can use your time however you like. On weekends there are many times where they will take you out somewhere. During those times they also will strike up conversations about many topics, and it is reasons like these that you will see your communication ability shoot up rapidly.
Ron’s wife, Ann, loves talking with people. In fact, she speaks more with others than he does! Having said that, on weekdays Ann works as a nurse and has to go to work, and on weekends she takes care of her weekends and is super busy. She will of course talk to you a lot during meals, but it might be hard to speak with her during other times.
Delicious cooking.
Being a nurse, Ann will cook delicious and healthy food for you everyday. Everyone who has stayed there has the same opinion about her food: it is top notch and fantastic. Since she is from the Philippines, she cooks a lot of Asian food and often includes rice in her meals, which suits the Japanese palette well. And with her knowledge from nursing, she always makes sure everything she cooks is healthy.
When I went to visit, Ann made spring rolls and fried dumplings. Both dishes were homemade and fried at home as well. I held back a bit to be polite, but Ann and Ron encouraged me to keep eating and I had an amazingly delicious dinner.
And even after that, they told me to take some home (and it was a lot!), and my family really enjoyed it as well!
You Can Experience American Culture
Many places in America become quite crowded during both the end of and beginning of the year. If you do your homestay during this time of the year, your host family will most likely let you join in on their own celebrations and plans, during which you can really experience American culture. This is probably the best thing about doing a homestay. Americans always celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day together.
Of course, since students doing homestays are also considered a part of the family, your host family will allow you to celebrate with them. Ron’s relatives live nearby, so his family really treasures family bonding and connections. And even during months when there are no important holidays, Ron and his family have dinner together two to three times a month.
And of course, when many people gather, there is bound to be a lot of conversation! This will even further strengthen your communication ability!
Do not choose this homestay if you are a late night person.
While this is a family that loves to interact and talk with others, An does have to work on weekdays and often goes to bed around 9:00 PM. There are times when Ron stays up a bit later than her but there are also times when he goes to bed at the same time as her too.
When choosing this homestay, please be sure to avoid being too loud at night or keeping up your host family by dragging out long conversations close to bedtime.
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