MidwestMom2Kids_

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.

nngmm

I am sure you'll probably have fun, but a 2-3 weeks "volunteer program" with $4000 price tag does not impress college adcoms, so if that's your rationale, save the money, or travel on your own for less.

CTTC

But think of the possibilities for that college application essay! Now the parent could write the entire essay for the student, since they were there, too!

kathiep

Sounds good but c'mon, high school students TEACHING english? My daughter graduated (with highest honors) from her college with a major in Education. She's teaching in China right now and says it's the hardest thing she's ever done. I'm sure the HS kids can help out a bit but teaching? I would find it more palatible if they promoted it more as a fun interaction thing instead of teaching. Not to say this isn't a good deal or fun but not really a volunteer or service activity imho.

Northstarmom

It could be an interesting trip for parents and kids with the money who also like to travel and volunteer. It won't impress colleges, however, because colleges know that basically it's a nice opportunity for the wealthy. It's not as if the kid would have earned that trip by doing anything other than being born into the right family.

Saying this, incidentally, as someone who has paid to volunteer in the Caribbean with my kids. We did it because we wanted to expose them to Caribbean culture (my dad was Jamaican) and we also like to volunteer. We didn't do it, however, to impress colleges or polish kids' resumes. Our experience was disappointing. There was little that we could do in the 2 weeks that we were there. We would have made much more of a difference spending 2 weeks volunteering at home.

davhu1

I went thru the info and thought it was an interesting program. I would take my son if I was a native speaker, which I am not. I am interpreting the info differently than others:

kathiep - high school student seemed to be working more as a teacher's aid and not as the teacher. They are helping the local students to learn English by helping the teacher and interacting with the students. Some high school student are already doing that at weekend Chinese schools programs here in the US. They voulunteer thier time as teacher's aid to help student learn Chinese.

nngmm - I don't see a $4000 price tag? I only see $1700. Did I miss something? Airfare alone from the US will cost ~$1,300, plus you get 4 day of guided tour in Beijing, ~$100/day. Hardly leave $ for anything else. This appears to be similar to many similar voluteern program where most of the cost is to cover transportation and living expenses, and very different from the programs like People -to-People Student Embassador Program...

emeraldkity4

When my oldest was in grade school, her class went to Chungking. We would have loved to have gone, several parents apparently wrote it off as a business expense and were puzzled that H couldn't do the same. ( He did work for Boeing, but as a machinist not an engineer or consultant & at that point was new to the company- I think we could have found a way to make it work anyway- for instance recently he was supposed to go to Italy to train workers & you can be sure I was trying to think of a way I could come along )

You really have to stay several weeks to make the travel time worth it. I think it is would be an interesting family trip if the interest were there, and you could afford it- but I wouldn't look at it as something that would make any difference in college applications.

However- a couple thoughts. My younger daughter- as I have mentioned, is currently in Ghana installing computers in a boarding school as well as getting to know the Ghanian people, as well as she can for 2 & 1/2 weeks.
However, the group she is with, are classmates from her high school & teachers so she has already learned ( I hope) to work with them.
They also have been fundraising all year, not just for their own airfare, but for supplies to donate to the school and village. ( Students also do bulk of planning- with guidance from adults)
I think the having the time to work together before hand would add to the experience over everyone & thing being new when you arrive.

While I would love the chance to travel and work with my daughters, I also know that they get something different out of their experiences that they have away from the family.

Not better- just different & for my high school daughter- she much would prefer in most occasions to not be identified as " her mother's daughter", a side effect of my being a big volunteer and organizer from before she entered school.

When the whole financial end of programs is running into the thousands of dollars- I look at what would I or my child get from this package that we couldn't get on our own?. Especially when on "our own" may be less expensive and more individualized to our interests.

Now Ds trip to Ghana- couldn't have been done on our own.
We don't know anyone there- she is going with a school organization that has gone to Ghana five times already, not to mention the other countries where they have run programs. This trip is also a once in a lifetime opportunity, because not only was she going somewhere that I had never even thought of going, but one of her high school counselors who used his vacation time to go along, is also from Ghana & they are visiting the village where he is Nana, chief. Really an amazing experience I am sure.
( the students also- to emphasize did a lot of fundraising and community outreach beforehand- that alone was life changing for my daughter- she has always been a community volunteer, but to take initiative and lead projects, that is huge)

For my oldest, as a 1st grader, to go to China, for us- it wasn't even an issue. First while they had been learning Mandarin at school, ( and I had been helping with the Chinese choir after school) , they had the wonderful opportunities of working with people in the Chinese community in Seattle, learning & performing lion dance & meeting with the Chinese acrobats, I felt like she is six, how much is she even going to remember? She is already doing more than I did when I was 16!

The primary language is English in Ghana, as it serves apparently as the common language alongside the tribal languages, so the teaching and learning my D is doing, doesn't have that barrier.

I do think that kids can teach English, a friend of older D's taught school for three years in Micronesia, after high school, but I wonder how much he would have been able to communicate in just a few weeks.

I don't mean to be a bucket of cold water- but as Libra , I always carefully consider everything for weeks before I make a decision. Not having the money helps too.

I think that travel can be very enriching, and while my own D would prefer to be on her own ( at least away from mom) at this age, other kids may get more out of it, and it could be a wonderful way to add another layer to your relationship.

But myself, I would be more likely to be able to talk her into going to New Orleans to help rebuild, as some friends have already done with their parents. Actually as I am studying restoration horticulture, I am very interested in doing something along those lines. However- it would be lots of studying about that region beforehand.

ucsd_ucla_dad

This is the point that struck me most - 14 days of teaching English to rural Chinese by anyone seems very ineffectual to me. They'd be lucky to learn a few words in that time and then the teacher's gone. Given this, it seems more like a tour opportunity more than anything else. That's not bad, but the reality is there'd be little to no effective teaching to the Chinese achieved.

If it's a tour of China you're after, then this program might be worthwhile. If it's volunteering you're after, look closer to home. Your S can likely do all the volunteering he wants within 10 miles of home.

nngmm

Yes, you missed the $1985 for the parent that must come along.

ShanghaiMom

Actually I think if the program sends out multiple groups to the places to teach English it could be quite effective. The role of the American kid or parent is to make the class interesting. English is taught in a very rote form here - often by teachers who barely even speak English themselves. At our international HS here in Shanghai there are large groups of kids who go teach English at the migrant schools - the program goes throughout the year but the kids vary week to week. Often the lesson plan is simply to teach 10 words - for example 10 animal names. The Chinese way to teach is to just say the words over and over while the American kids will bring pictures or get the kids to act like the animals. Consequently the kids remember more, remember it with a more correct pronunciation AND line up to take the English classes after school.
I also love the idea of volunteering as a family - though agree that there is always need right in your own backyard and we often tend to want to travel to volunteer when we don't need to. Creating a family ethic of volunteering together is a life long bond - my husbands parents join our family in annual Christmas trips to a Thailand orphanage. While I like to think we make an impact in the lives of the kids there the reality is that they like the gifts we bring and forget about us after we go! But the joy on their faces and watching my kids interact with them is worth every penny and every minute of our trip.
The boost on college admissions from a program like this one in China might not be great but I bet that it would make an interesting essay topic. My daughter who has traveled all over the world was greatly impacted by a habitat trip she took to Bangladesh her senior year. The kids she saw there haunted her so much that it came through in her essays and gave her a purposeful goal in life to make a difference. Without that trip her essay would have lacked that level of passion.

great lakes mom

Given that Concordia Language Villages is sponsoring this trip, with a long history of teaching language through researched immersion methodology, I wouldn't dismiss it so easily. I'd think the point would be to add an invaluable immersion experience to Chinese students lives. They study English already, but this would be contact with native speakers rather than more rote classroom work. For an American, this would be far more interpersonally involved than the average tour. The Language Villages is branching out a bit from the traditional summer camps. Volunteering as a family, as Shanghai mom says, is a very worthwhile endeavor, though of course there is plenty of need closer to home. But there is something about sharing a far flung adventure that brings people closer.

Disclaimer-I work for CLV on occasion, though know no more about this program than what is on the website.

mommusic

I thought this was going to be about volunteering with the Summer Olympics! I would think speakers of both Mandarin and English or another language could do that.

mstee

My nieces go on mission trips to various places with other kids. They run a bible school or do some other sort of work. They have to come up with the money to do it (jobs/sponsors/donations from family). The cost is similar.
If you are going to travel to volunteer, someone has to pay for it.

If you like traveling, learning about another culture, and spending time volunteering, and can come up with the $$, sounds good to me. And I would feel secure with Concordia Language Villages. A couple of my kids have attended their camps.

FLVADAD

While I agree that one can find other, far less expensive endeavors, to enhance a college app, I wouldn't automatically dismiss its value in that regard. I think it would be a nice supplemental experience for a student who has demonstrated other interests in China or Chinese culture.

I have a student who has taught herself how to speak and write Chinese, started a Mandarin Club at school, been the only non-Chinese participant in local Chinese New Year performances and celebrations, etc. I would think this type of experience would only further enhance an adcoms consideration of such a student reflecting that level of culural interests.

OTOH, I certainly see it being of less value on a college app if completely done in a vacuum with no other supporting experiences.