PPE1B – Spring 2009 Pavlína Kopecká Benefits from secondary school exchanges There have been many institutions organizing various exchange programs for one week only or the whole year, e.g. Student Agency, Education First etc. Students have more possibilities how to travel, e.g. with their classmates and a teacher, with their friends, or alone. They can be accommodated in a host family or in a hotel. When going abroad the students gain a lot of new experience. They get to know the country, the culture, the people and their habits and customs. The most important knowledge they gain is in the language. Every student is different which means that the knowledge in the language differs. When having a musical ear the students get much better in pronunciation, stress and intonation, the longer stay the better they are in vocabulary, when attending a learning program at school they improve grammar, when being accommodated in a family they have the chance to speak the foreign language more and improve all the skills mentioned above. At such experience the students meet new friends and continue in improving the foreign language after coming home by writing e-mails, letters etc. After coming home or when being abroad the student has a possibility to write an international test, e.g. FCE, CAE, etc. But as well as the stay costs quite a lot of money, the international test is not much cheaper. If the student really wants to pass one he or she must study very hard. The benefits from exchange programs do not acquire only the students going abroad, but the host family and the people he or she meets in the foreign country. They get to know a lot of new information about the country the person comes from and they can compare, the host family as well as the student, the social, political and economic situation. By experience we know, that when a Czech student goes abroad to learn more from the language he or she studies at secondary school, the improvement of the language is in most cases marvellous and the experience they get is unforgettable. But when a foreign student comes to the Czech Republic the improvement in the language is in most cases imperceptible. Any more than the Czech students they get a lot of new experience and many new friends, they can come to the local schools, but the language is so difficult for them to study that when going home, they usually can say only few words and phrases used in every day routine. Benefits from secondary school exchange programmes are visible on both sides, the host family and the student too. They learn about the country they come from, they can compare them in many ways and get new friends, in many cases for the whole life. References: Youth for understanding USA, 2008. Global Insights.