Global Language Villages in China
From the web pages:
July 7- July 29, 2008
begins in Beijing with a four-day guided introduction to major historical and cultural sites. After the tour, 12-15 team members will travel to each Global Language Village to teach English to youth for 14 days. Each Language Village is led by a dean hired to coordinate the program and work with the host site administration.
$1985* Adults
$1700 High School Students (with parents)
Each summer, a select group of high school students volunteer as activity leaders in China. Students have assisted teachers in the classroom with language lessons, arts and crafts projects, sports, games and night programs. Each high school-aged student needs to be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
My two cents:
You would spend two weeks pf the three-week trip doing serious volunteer work in Chinese classrooms. It would be really interesting and, of course, it would look nice on college applications. (I could never convince my 14-year-old son to take a break from summer baseball for three weeks, but maybe some of you have some flexibility in July. What a great experience this would be. Maybe something about this should be posted on the Summer Programs board but that board seems to be mostly students looking for summer experiences - this Chinese language program is one a student can't do without a parent.) And, of course, Concordia Language Villages have been around for years and are well-organized and reliable.