There is no problem with safety. Families pick up their children or school buses pick them up. There is no disconnection in between. Australia's public security is also very good.
Because it is effective, there is a market.
A child’s first country of study plays a guiding role in the country where he will study in the future
(Mr. Hou, manager of an exchange company)
Studying and studying abroad contact? I think the connection is very close. Our children are very young, and it may be their first time to go abroad for a study tour, so it is very easy for them to make preconceptions. For example, if a child joins an Australian study tour group, OK, he may choose to study in Australia in the future. They will not compare the value of Australian diplomas with American diplomas like their parents do. Before a child has experienced ups and downs and the world, his first country of study plays a decisive role in guiding his future country of study. This is our personal experience, and there are too many such examples. When asked why he wanted to study there, he said, "I've been to summer camp and winter camp, and I think it's pretty good there."
In fact, the environment in Commonwealth countries and regions is relatively good, and the architectural styles follow the Christian tradition and British tones and forms.
Study tour organizers and overseas hosting units, including colleges and universities, use study tours as a way to strengthen your choice of the country where you will study abroad in the future. Schools in study abroad countries, including those in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia, are very active, and very active, because this is their potential source of students in the future. They did a great job in reception and organization. Therefore, it is necessary to remind children who participate in study tours, otherwise you should visit a few more countries and compare them. Don’t make a decision to study abroad in one country easily after you have been there.
As for the role of the course, it is actually very little. It is better to say it is an experience. There is no homework, no defense and no examination. Parents don’t have the idea that they need to learn a lot of knowledge, they just want to see the world and get a feel for it. Parents’ thinking is that anyway, the study tour is just for learning English, seeing the world, and having fun. Who would have thought that their children would fall in love at first sight?
The cost is relatively high, that’s for sure. There are not many rich people now, so go for it. I personally think that if possible, you can study abroad appropriately. There is no harm except spending some money.
Spending money to see the world and find a feeling is obviously a high-cost warm-up for studying abroad or a quality education. It is a bit like a game for the rich. It can be a "model", but it is difficult to "popularize". Although the market The feedback gets better every year.
Parents should not have too high expectations
(Mr. Zhang, deputy general manager of a cultural exchange company)
The history of our study tour partner’s fortune is It started with study tours and has a history of nearly 40 years. The purpose of study tour is to travel while studying. The countries I often visit include the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, mainly these three routes. From our many years of experience in operating study tours, we feel that the study tour market is growing and maturing, and EF's services are also constantly improving.
However, it is not difficult to see that there are indeed some problems in the current study tour market: many parents have extremely high expectations for two to three weeks of study tours. I hope that while my children will go abroad to see beautiful scenery, their foreign languages ??will also improve by leaps and bounds, and their knowledge will also increase to a high degree. In fact, no one can say how much a child’s English level can be improved in just two or three weeks, nor can it be said how much the child will change. But one thing is certain, the real value of a study tour is that on the one hand, it allows the child to Take a look abroad, live in a foreigner's home, experience their lifestyle and way of thinking when communicating with foreigners, and observe and experience some details; on the other hand, even though the child cannot learn from the essence of language in more than ten days, However, their motivation to learn the language has increased a lot.
I once worked as a team leader and took children abroad. Before going abroad, I often received uneasy advice from their parents. However, after going abroad, the children had to contact foreign teachers and families every day, and they were in a foreign language environment. They were forced to speak English in a real environment, no matter whether it was right or wrong, and they dared to speak. Different from other study tour groups, EF is a big family. The children participating in the study tour come from different countries around the world. In such an environment, children naturally love to make friends, so even if they say something bad, they will still make gestures. Talk about communication. This creates an irritating mentality for children: if they don’t speak English well, they won’t even be able to make foreign friends, or even move forward. It can be said that through short-term travel, children can feel that a foreign language is really a tool in life. This awareness is difficult to influence children through parents or teachers in China. Children can easily understand the importance of language after experiencing it first-hand. sex. After returning, I will take the initiative to strengthen my studies. Therefore, this investment by parents is very worthwhile.
The functions of study tours and studying abroad cannot be equated. Although all the organizers say that they focus on learning, in fact this kind of learning is best understood as "learning by traveling". After this experience, It is enough to have an experience different from that in China. As for the major life issues of which path to take in the future and how to take it, it is really difficult to bear in a short study tour.
The cost-effective advantage of long-term exchanges is more obvious
(Xie Ping, Secretary-General of UNESCO Beijing Branch)
Nowadays, there are many institutions doing study tours. From the perspective of the education department, the earliest inter-school exchanges for middle school students took place. The long ones lasted for one year or one semester, and the short ones were usually during holidays, which are now known as study tours.
UNESCO has launched an exchange program with middle school students in the United States. Middle school students aged 15 to 18 who are in their first or second year of high school go to the United States to study for one year, live with a host family, enter an American school, and are in the same class as American children. Because the requirements for English are relatively high, on the basis of voluntary registration, there is also an English test selection. After the selected students are approved by the United States, they will be arranged to host families. After the visa is approved, they can go after a short-term training. .
This project is in its third year. In the first year, 14 people left Beijing, last year there were more than 20, and this year there are more than 30. Go to different areas in the United States, basically small and medium-sized cities. The fees parents pay include international travel expenses and living expenses for their children. They go to public schools there with free tuition, eat with host families, and attend schools near their homes. The total cost is more than 70,000 yuan. Except for their own pocket money, they covered all the expenses in the United States. During the holidays, American families take them to travel and sightsee. Think about it, if you contact the school to come to the United States by yourself, it will cost hundreds of thousands.
The connection of the courses is like this. After the first year of high school, go to the United States to attend the second year of high school. After returning, you will study for one more year and continue to the second year of high school in this school. There will be some duplication of courses, but the teaching materials between the two countries are still very different, and you will have to take the high school entrance exam after you return.
Looking from now, it goes without saying that the children who went there will have good English proficiency when they come back. They have no problem communicating, can understand in class, and can complete their homework. Because I live in a family and community and go to an American school, I have a relatively in-depth understanding of American society. Influenced by the American personality, some children are not very cheerful when they leave, but they talk and laugh happily when they come back. The parents are also quite satisfied and feel that their children have made great progress.
The most obvious improvement is independence. Our children are quite spoiled. Our parents take care of everything, and we have to take care of ourselves after we leave. When living in other people's families, you have to learn to communicate with them, overcome difficulties by yourself, and negotiate any situations by yourself.
The United States has a credit system. During their studies there, several students had a good foundation and worked very hard. They earned enough credits and obtained American high school diplomas. They contacted the university on their own and applied to the university there, and the university agreed to accept her. After I came back, I took the domestic high school entrance examination. It didn’t take long to get the certificate here, apply for the visa, and then I was there.
From the perspective of UNESCO, it is difficult to do it in the short term, because many schools have their own channels and organizational capabilities. The short-term market is huge, and every school and district is doing it, so UNESCO has chosen its strengths.
Benefits to the school? There are not many economic benefits, but the school must continue to develop, it must be open, and it must increase its visibility and attraction. What the school considers is learning from advanced management and teaching outside, including courses, as well as improving the level and vision of teachers. of openness, improvement of teaching methods, etc. In addition, it organizes such activities, which is good for it to absorb students.
It sounds beautiful, but it has higher requirements on children’s own conditions than short-term study tours. It is not enough to have money to participate in such exchanges.
I want to bring Chinese teenagers to world-class universities
(Mr. Wen, employee of a management consulting company)
What we do is to bring Chinese students Quality improvement training that expands horizons is personally led by well-known education experts, who work with travel agencies to lead children to visit foreign institutions. The main reason why I organized this event was because I saw a "World University Ranking" researched by Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Institute of Higher Education two years ago. In this ranking, our country's Tsinghua University ranked 200. From now on, only 8 universities in China will enter the so-called university rankings. This ranking is completely a quantitative study, such as the proportion of research professors/the number of papers published in world-class publications, the number of scientific research papers to be published. The number of articles, the ratio of research professors to professors, the number of major awards received, etc., this kind of quantitative research makes our universities very weak. This caused a great shock to me.
We should be soberly aware that our country’s economy has made great progress in recent years, and the per capita GDP has also grown very fast. Education funding has allowed universities to build many buildings, and there are also many new universities. The country He also ambitiously proposed “a plan to create a world-class university” and so on. But everyone who understands the education situation in the 21st century knows that Chinese universities are still far behind world-class universities in terms of cultivating first-class scientific talents. This prompts every one of us who is engaged in education to be concerned and find ways to make changes. Therefore, since the year before last, I have paid attention to allowing young people across the country to study world-class universities. The year before last, I started working at the first-class universities in Beijing, and last year I worked at European universities. I will also take Chinese teenagers to the first-class universities in the United States, the first-class universities in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Austria and other world-class universities. I will take everyone there next year. Top universities in Japan, top universities in Russia, top universities in Singapore, etc. I have one purpose: I hope our children can be exposed to world-class universities from an early age, and inspire them to cultivate lofty ideals from an early age, and strive to enter these first-class universities that cultivate outstanding talents in the future.
Last year I took dozens of children to European universities, including the University of Paris, Marie Curie Laboratory, école Normale Supérieure, Einstein’s alma mater, and the world’s most famous university for the sound of music—— University of Vienna etc. The children were infected and influenced, and their mental outlook also changed a lot after they came back. We have also been generally well received by parents.
In fact, before setting up this quality training class, we also investigated all the summer camps currently run by travel agencies, study abroad agencies, etc. We declare that they are not called "summer camps". Most of them adopt the form of Home Stay to stay in foreign countries. In most families, English learning is the main focus. In fact, a large number of foreign teachers have come to China in the past two years. It is not necessary to go abroad to learn English. Of course, it would be better to have the influence of an English environment. However, English cannot be improved in a week or two or 10 days. of. Therefore, our theme goal is very clear, mainly to inspect and visit universities around the world. Use the stories of famous people to inspire children to be diligent and studious. We are completely different from them. I personally lead the team, and everyone knows my own value. The teachers accompanying us include psychology teachers, doctors, etc., because we must first consider the safety of the children. Last year we had a very brilliant achievement: we turned a child who was relatively autistic, had a gloomy view of society, and had some psychological defects into a brighter child through just 10 days of interaction.
After returning to school, I wrote a touching essay. We also organized a QQ communication network for these children.
Don’t beat around the bush and go straight to the point. I believe that those children who have seen the world with Professor Wen will one day remember when they graduate from such a school that they “traveled” around the world. to inspire them.