ECI’s Homestay Programs in the U.S.
2-4 Week Programs in the San Francisco Bay Area and Boston
Edu-Culture International has conducted cultural immersion trips and educational tours for high school and middle school students for eleven years.
ECI’s programs help students gain the kind of knowledge only an on-site experience can provide. The trips are well established, widely respected, and carefully planned. They include full-time dynamic leaders and chaperones combined with exceptional opportunities and excursions.
The result is a highly personal encounter with life in another country. Students return to Europe with powerful new perspectives on the world and on themselves.
Integral to ECI's programs is the Host Family experience, which oftentimes is one of the students' favorite parts of their trip.
ECI offers four separate programs. The most common program is the Group Program:
Group Program
ECI’s Group Programs involve an itinerary of excursions and activities that are designed to be fun, interesting, and educational. Students are generally busy from 9 am to 5 pm doing activities and excursions with a Local Leader (from the hosting community) and a European Chaperone that accompanies them from their home country.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, some of the trip highlights include several visits to San Francisco to see all of the main sites including the Golden Gate Bridge, Chinatown, North Beach, Fisherman’s Wharf and Ghirardelli Square; a fun-filled day at Great America; a tour of the University of California, Berkley campus; and a visit to Alcatraz.
In Boston, students visit such sights as Beacon Hill, the USS Constitution, Newbury Street, Trinity Church, the Museum of Science, and the Boston Public Gardens. They spend time in Historical Boston and see Faneuil Hall, the Boston Massacre Site, the State House, and Boston Common. Students also take a tour of Harvard University in Cambridge.
Students on most ECI group programs do Language and Culture Workshops, participate in a typical American sports day, and become expert chefs during an American Cooking Day.
There are usually 20-30 students in any given group, and the students range in age from 14 to 18 years old. Group trips are a minimum of two and maximum of four weeks long - usually three weeks in length. Usually the trips are three weeks long. Group program students usually come from Spain, France, Germany, and Austria and may be a mixed trip or a group of students from one single country.
Immersion Program
While the majority of ECI students participate in a Group Program, some students choose ECI’s Immersion Program, which does not involve any organized group activities. Instead, students live with families with the goal of becoming entirely immersed in the culture. These students may fly to/from Europe with the group program students, but they do not participate in the group activities. Their focus is to speak and learn entirely in English with their individual host families.
While Immersion students may stay as long as six weeks, usually they stay for 2-4 weeks. Students range in age from 14-18 years old. In the past, Immersion Program students have come from Spain, France, Germany, Austria, and Poland.
ECI's Short-term Programs during the Academic Year
ECI's short-term academic year programs are less frequent in comparison to the traditional summer Group and Immersion Programs. These 2-week academic year programs resemble the ECI Group Program.
High School Integration Program
Students shadow for several days in a local high school as part of their ECI program. During a High School Integration program, students spend nights and weekends with their host families. During the day they shadow at school or participate in a variety of activities and excursions planned in advance. These students usually come for a maximum of two weeks during in the spring. Students are typically 14-18 years of age and usually are from Austria.
Work Experience Program
Students on a Work Experience Program want to experience what it is like to work in the US. They typically shadow a host family member for several days. The remainder of the days they may visit local offices or businesses and/or participate in a variety of activities. These students typically stay for two weeks. Students spend nights and weekends with their host families. Work Experience students tend to be 16-18 years of age.