Students learn lessons in a new landMonday, November 12, 2007
By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER
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PHOTO BY CHRIS PEDOTA / THE RECORD
Exchange students Izumi Tsukada, left, and Rifat Altinag are photographed in the hallway of Teaneck High School. |
Izumi Tsukada holds her hands in front of her as if holding a book and bends her head down, mimicking her own studious classroom demeanor.
"The teacher would say, 'What is the meaning of this?' " the 17-year-old Japanese student says, pointing at an imaginary word. "And we would say, 'This is what it means.' "
There was little discussion and debate. Students copied notes from the blackboard and listened to lectures passively. They memorized and slaved over material for the life-changing entrance exams.
But that was in Japan. Today, Izumi is in a completely different world: Teaneck.
"American students are so active!" she says of her new classmates. "Even during classes, they show interest in the material."
This 2007-2008 school year, Izumi and Rifat "Saygin" Altinag of Turkey have joined the melting pot that is Teaneck High School. But each day, Izumi and Rifat take home a bit more than book smarts. The pair are exchange students -- two of the thousands of teenagers who leave their native countries annually to venture to and study in a foreign country and immerse themselves in its culture.
Through daily interaction, trial and error, and the help of their host families and new friends, Izumi and Rifat are slowly learning the finer points of being teenagers in America, and, specifically, North Jersey. It isn't quite a laugh or lesson a minute, as it is in the CW network's new exchange student family sitcom, "Aliens in America." But as their experiences demonstrate, learning a new culture has its moments.
Izumi and Rifat have a full and typical high school course load and social calendar: reading, writing, arithmetic, and then some. Rifat has added Latin and computer programming to his list, and Izumi has ventured into creative writing.
But many lessons, the exchange students have discovered, are learned outside the classroom. Take what happened to Rifat when he joined Teaneck High's math club. The 17-year-old missed one of the club's meetings and, in short order, was promptly voted its president.
Host mom Adela Bolet calls it a "lesson in democracy."
"Yes, I am the president of the math club," Rifat says behind a half-sheepish, half-shy smile. But the future medical student has risen to the task, leading the school's math team into competitions with gusto.
Good grasp of EnglishThis may seem a feat for a Turkish boy for whom English is a second language; but other than a few vocabulary words he needs explained, Rifat's English is smooth (a product of a language requirement in the Turkish school system). He tested out of ESL classes, and though he says he didn't understand television when he first arrived in August, immersion and ESPN are doing the trick.
English is a bit more of a challenge for Izumi, who was placed in an advanced-level ESL class. But despite her slower speech, she gets a kick out of the creative writing class that she takes with non-ESL students.
"I wrote a sonnet for a project two or three weeks ago," she says. "It is hard for me to search for rhymes. So I searched for words that rhyme in Carpenters songs." Izumi learned the music of the 1970s pop duo from sheet music with her vocal instructor in Japan. Karen and Richard Carpenter's words now help guide her in the nuances of the English language.
American music and pop culture, known worldwide, provide a conduit for many foreign teens as they try to negotiate a place for themselves in high school and in the neighborhoods where they are living for a year.
Rifat, for one, knows all about Michael Jackson -- not Neverland Michael Jackson or courtroom-prone Michael Jackson but "Thriller" Michael, the performer whose moonwalk he marveled at with classmates around Halloween, when a mixed chorus instructor showed them footage of Jackson's then-groundbreaking video.
"That's the first moonwalk!" he told his classmates, his usually soft voice lifted to a near shout.
Surprisingly scarceIronically, in a state as ethnically diverse as New Jersey, exchange students such as Izumi and Rifat are few. In the 2006-2007 school year, the Garden State ranked 41st on the list of exchange students per state -- far behind more homogeneous states like Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and South Dakota. The numbers were compiled by the Council on Standards for International Educational Travel, which monitors most of the exchange students coming in and out of the United States.
According to council statistics, American students, as a whole, are less curious or willing to travel abroad as part of cultural exchange programs than their foreign counterparts. A total of 28,268 students were hosted in America last year, more than 10 times the number of American students who traveled abroad as part of similar programs.
The programs, today overseen mostly by nonprofits, have a simple mission: Transport youths age 15 to 17 to another country for summers, semesters or full school years.
Hosting an exchange student
• Any two people related by blood or marriage can be a host family -- whether you have young children, adult children or no children at all.
• Host families are not asked to become legal guardians for the exchange students. This responsibility rests with the programs through which the students come. All that is asked of host families is to care for the students as they would their own children.
• All international students who come to the United States on government-sponsored programs and most private programs have studied, spoken and written English. Most of them have studied our language for five years or more, and international students from a number of countries must pass an English proficiency test before being accepted into the program.
• Families do not get paid to host. They host because they want to open their home to someone from another culture and, thus, get to know the world a little bit better.
• Prospective host families must be personally interviewed in their home. References are generally required.
• For more information, visit exchanges.state.gov/education/citizens/students/. In addition, for information on exchange students from areas other than those covered by government-sponsored programs, consult the Council on Standards for International Educational Travel (CSIET) Web site, csiet.org, for the organizations listed in its Advisory List.
Source: Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State
AFS, which placed Izumi and Rifat with hosts, was founded just after World War II through the American Field Service. "Living in another culture through AFS helps students overcome the 'us' versus 'them' mentality, to build relationships across cultures, and to deepen their understanding of their home cultures at the same time," according to the group's Web site. "Host families also overcome stereotypes through their hosting experience."
Although Izumi and Rifat's hosting families are having fun with their temporary visitors, they've had a period of transition. It takes a certain generosity and open-mindedness to share a home with a complete stranger.
Both Izumi's hosts (Marilyn and Allon Pratt) and Rifat's hosts (Adela Bolet and Richard Betts, an AFS alumni) have done their best to integrate them into a daily routine and into family activities year-round.
New tastesThe Pratts, an Israeli-American family, have introduced Izumi to homemade tahini and pomelo fruit. A few weeks ago, they took her to Lawrence Farms Orchards, a pick-your-own farm in New York, where they convinced her to bite into her first raw bell pepper.
Meanwhile, Rifat's love of music -- he used to sing opera as an extracurricular activity -- has helped him bond with his host mother.
"I heard him humming in the car, and I said, 'Hmm...' " Adela Bolet says. They are now both members of the Ars Musica Chorale, which practices weekly. Rehearsals are getting more intense, as the first concert of the season is scheduled for Saturday in Ridgewood.
AFS and other exchange student programs often recruit families who send their children abroad to return the favor. The Pratt family came to host Izumi because 15-year-old Carmel Pratt wanted to do an exchange program in Peru.
It's not always easy to relate to an exchange student visiting your home country, Izumi says. She has had firsthand experience. Her family hosted an exchange student from Texas for a year at their home in Shizuoka, Japan. And her high school often hosted foreign students as well, "but they stood out," she says.
"Many of us tried to talk with the exchange students, but sometimes we don't understand what they are thinking," Izumi says. That is why she is grateful that her classmates at Teaneck High "talk to me the same way as with other friends."
Tips for becoming an exchange student
• Find a program that you feel you can trust. Visit csiet.org and see the 2007-2008 list of organizations that place students.
• In most cases, you should be between the ages of 15 and 18 (14 to 19 for some destinations).
• Most successful exchange students have taken a foreign language for two years in high school, or the equivalent, when their destination is a non-English speaking country.
• Make sure that the time away from your high school will not delay graduation.
• Check to see what the academic calendar looks like in the host country. For example, the Japanese school year begins in April, but the Australian academic year begins in February.
E-mail: shih@northjersey.com
Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
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