AHN Reviews

Hello!
We’ve had a great time with Yanran and Meng so far. And to add to the excitement we’ve had an old homestay student visit us for a week. Yuri studied at Griffith Uni in 2017 and stayed with us then. She returned a year later for further study and requested to stay with us again. It was so wonderful to have her return this week for a holiday, just to see us.

Hi there, when Pak was with us, his sister would join us and we loved playing board games. It helps with English and we many great laughs. We also enjoyed eating out and trying new foods – delicious!

Ten was the first student I have hosted, I was nervous and not sure what to expect. Now, I’m grateful for the experience, thanks to Ten. What a great first student! We had 6 months together and we really became family. I watched her grow from a nervous and shy girl, to a confident and independent young woman. I was very lucky to have Ten as my first student, we learnt so much from each other, shared experiences and made lots of memories. Myself and my puppy (who stole Ten’s heart) will miss her greatly!

I was hesitant about taking a student from Saudi Arabia, but I will never prejudge any student again. He was polite, spoke great English, respectful and so helpful. I keep in touch with him, his wife and his two children and he calls me his Oz mum. I was even the first person to find out that he passed the first component of his PHD. I currently have a student from Saudi Arabia although some 15 years younger he is also wonderful.

I always enjoy getting to know the new students, their culture and sharing what it is to have an Australian lifestyle. I have shared some photos of my last student Max and his friend Linus.

It’s an enriching experience hosting an international student and I can thoroughly recommend it.

Zoe (Hsaio-Li) is wonderful. She is a strongly capable and clever girl with a great sense of humour. Being my first female student in a long time, I’m relieved and impressed by her independence and ability to problem solve. We’ve had some wonderful conversations. Zoe participates happily in any activities we hold. She is thoughtful and friendly and well all be sad when she returns home.

Hosting can be a very enjoying experience, and communication is the key to success. We have been able to assist with varied emotional experiences helping our girls adapt to life in Australia.

We enjoyed our Homestay Hosting and had amazing connections with our students. We were their Australian Mum & Dad. We have welcomed their friends celebrated birthdays and Christmas. Our First Homestay were 2 Rohingyan for 6 weeks. One of the Rohingyan’s still rings after 7 years. Thank you AHN for the opportunity to participate in they’re developing young lives and seeing their dreams begin to materialise.

The most rewarding thing about becoming a homestay host is getting respected and numerous fiends all over the world and they treat you like their second mum.

Saturday morning I went to Griffith Uni to farewell Kota and his friends that I met when he was here. Kota is a lovely young man. He is so positive and so full of life. He loves the Gold Coast, loves my home and my cooking. We had so much fun together and laughed a lot. I miss him. We are keeping in touch and I am hoping to go to Tokyo next year to catch up with Kota and Takumi who was my first Homestay student six years ago. We are still in touch.

We have laughed with them and talked with them at length enjoying our during and after dinner conversations. We have celebrated birthdays. I am pleased that my cooking has been acceptable to people with very different diets to us. We have learnt much about the cultures of Vietnam, Russia, China and Hong Kong and keep a large map marking their home towns. We have learnt to tolerate cultural differences at the dinner table but one thing I still have not been able to master is the use of chopsticks.

I’ve been hosting internaitonal students for almost 6 years. I’ve loved it! It has provided me the opportunity to get to know people from around the world. I’ve learned to see people for who they really are, not who the media says they are. This has tauht me to stop judging people and to love them instead. I’ve learned about new places in the world and “seen” how beautiful various lands are through the eyes of people who live there. I’ve learned of some places I had previously never even heard of. I’ve eaten and learned to cook new foods. And on top of all of this there has been a financial blessing in the money i’ve earned from building these relationships! If you have ever thought you might like to host international people in your home I encourage you to give it a try!

Having an internstional student has certainly changed our perception of Japanese culture and it will be difficult to say goodbye when her stay ends. We have had no problem in overcoming any barriers during her homestay.

Thanks for the opportunity to host Tomoki and Yuga during the Musashi High School study tour. Tomoki and Yuga were delightful and great company. From day one, there were lots of jokes and laughs shared and it felt like we had known them before. It was refreshing to experience and see Australia through their eyes and learn so much about their culture and language. It was sad to see them go this morning but grateful for the experience. I hope they had a wonderful time.

Kanako is such a lovely girl and we are having such a great time with her. She is learning a lot of English with us and is helping my daughter with her Japanese too!

Yui is well and truly making the most of her time here. She seems to have settled in really well, and has integrated beautifully into our family life! She gets along extremely well with a seven year old, and we are all learning a lot about Japanese life. Yui is a dedicated student, and is learning a lot about life in Australia, and the English language. She is very open to new experiences and activities, and has particularly enjoyed cooking meals with us of a diverse range of international cuisines. We also went to the South Melbourne Market one day, and bought all the goods we needed for a big Japanese feast, which we prepared with Yui for several guests. We have also had some really lovely excursions out and about, including to St Kilda and Luna Park, and the Brighton beach bathing boxes.

It has been a very positive experience for everyone so far. And we would definitely love to host a student again.
Thank you for the opportunity to host a student, we feel like we have made a lifelong friend! I believe Yui has had a really good experience, and improved her English, and we hope she returns to Australia one day soon.

Minami is an absolute delight to have as part of our family! She is loving getting involved in all our activites and especially swimming at the beach with us and was so excited to see dolphins at our local beach the other day. She is keen to be a part of everything, which is great!

Fish has been here since the birth of our 3rd child, she still comes to over to play with the children or babysit them.  We ask her to house sit our new home, the cat and the students at present when we go on holiday.  We taught her how to drive, welcome her boyfriend into our family and the children call him “ Chips”.  She has stayed with my husbands’ family in Europe.  Her parents have come to Australia and invited us out for dinner and met up the last 3 years for a Boxing Day leftovers afternoons.

He is wonderful young lad. Very easy going, happy and independent. He is determined to do well, loves chatting and just spending time. A great student. I feel very lucky to be his host.

I believe by staying in Homestay instead of just room, gives them a more homely comfortable feel that there is someone around to help – even answer a question, if they need it.

Sho was an excellent student. Actually almost all your students are top notch respectful people. We miss their presence in the house.

We absolutely loved Nobu! He was our first ever home stay and he set the bar so high! What a wonderful, optimistic, creative, human being! The experience was so rewarding for us and he is already so missed!

They were an absolute pleasure to host. So many laughs and when they left, tears. Amazing how much of a bond can be made in only 11 days. Miri and Rina will always be apart of our family.

You need to be prepared to ‘go the extra yard’ to help. When they arrive they need to buy a travel card for public transport, open a bank account and buy a phone card to call their parents. You need to know where to buy these.

We have done homestay for 9 1/2 years and had some awesome experiences and shared amazing memories with our students.

We have laughed with them and talked with them at length enjoying our during and after dinner conversations. We have celebrated birthdays. I am pleased that my cooking has been acceptable to people with very different diets to us. We have learnt much about the cultures of Vietnam, Russia, China and Hong Kong and keep a large map marking their home towns. We have learnt to tolerate cultural differences at the dinner table but one thing I still have not been able to master is the use of chopsticks.

Our time together was incredibly joyous, filled with laughter, cultural exchanges, and the creation of lasting memories.

We are eagerly looking forward to hosting more guests and are committed to being the best hosts we can be, creating a warm and welcoming environment for all who stay with us.

We really enjoyed the experience with the Japanese students, I attached a couple of photos and the thank you card from one of the students before their departure. It’s a great feeling when you know the girls appreciate for what you have done for them.

Our students loved our safe, family life and enjoyed the personal attention they received. We involved our family and it was always a treat to experience the new culture. It was important to us that the students experience the Australian way of life.

We have been blessed to have Yuri as our homestay guest since August 2017. Yuri has become part of our extended family and it will be sad to her return home when her stay ends in June/July 2018. Her parents traveled to Australia from Japan at Xmas to celebrate the festive season with her and joined our whole family for Xmas lunch and loved every minute.

Steven has become such an integral part of our family, we all love him to bits. He easily settled in with us, and we all enjoy our “family dinners”.

Chihiro is still ‘wonderful’ so I am happy she is still here. Will be a sad day when she returns to Japan…

Get this… her Mum cannot speak English at all (nor me Japanese) but we have had a few facetime calls to converse (Chihiro interprets) during this year.
Unbeknown to me, her mother had been practising for over a month with Chihiro coaching her, to record a message, in English, for me and delivered it for my birthday to wish me a lovely day and to thank me for looking after her daughter – it literally brought tears !!

We are so happy to host Lily. She is very nice person, polite and respectful. As we have our own children, we treated her as our own too. Understood that she was far away from home and her family. We tried to help her to settle living in Australia. Also so glad that we received positive feedback from Lily. Hope all the best for her study and future. looking fwd to host another student.

Sogen is an absolute pleasure to have stay. He is extremely polite and excited to eat and learn Australian culture. His English is getting stronger every day.

Our student enjoy the more friendly, secure lifestyle of staying in homestay compared to small confined units.

Such a great experience being a homestay host. Learning different cultures and different languages and making new friends. We regularly keep in touch with many of our students who have stayed over the last 4 years.

Very polite and helpful young man. Has fitted into our family lifestyle extremely well.

Our family have been hosting for AHN for many years and have found hosting to be one of the most rewarding gifts that just keeps on giving! Homestay is not just an opportunity to share our home and the Gold Coast, but hosting students provides a unique opportunity to learn about their country, their people and culture.

Good student and really happy share our experiences living in Australia. She also introduced a lot Japanese culture. Thanks AHN give us opportunity to host.

Hosting can be a very enjoying experience, and communication is the key to success. We have been able to assist with varied emotional experiences helping our girls adapt to life in Australia.

These girls area perfect fit for me, they are very independant and Hatsuki has secured employment in a cafe. So proud of her. Aina helps me everywhere she can, in the home and in the garden. She is a social butterfly and very grounded. So proud of her. Ayana is so beautiful, she keeps to herself, but is mixing with the other girls nicely, I am keeping a extra eye on her as she is a little quieter The girls do their own thing mostly during the week, on the weekends we have been doing some great things together. So much laughing.

Shunkai is a delight to have stay in our home. He is very respectful and has a great sense of humour. Very happy to have him stay with us.

We had a great time hosting the student! Chikako is a very lovely girl and my kids love to play with her for about 40mins every night (I did mention that she doesn’t have to but she said she is enjoying to play with kids!)

We have thoroughly enjoyed our homestay experience. We have learnt a lot from our students. We have made some lifelong friends and have acquired some ‘daughters’ since we became homestay parents.

We have throughly enjoyed having Tuk with us. We are definitely going to miss his presence in our home. He has been an absolute delight to have with us. We are looking forward to future students staying with us 🙂

I am enjoying having the students in my home as I live by my self and it’s nice to have someone to cook for again and the company is great. Thank you very much. I am very happy.

Our relationship blossomed during her stay with me. She gave me a great feedback – that she was treated like a daughter in my house!! And in appreciation she left me a very well  considered gift of Airtight containers. I gave her a 18th birthday gift with a trip to the dessert parlour in Castle Hill, together with her Uni mates.

I have a great relationship with all my homestays. I still keep in touch with them through Facebook, Instagram, Wechat and meals out with the students.

We are going to make videos and millions of photos with my students- just to share our happiness of homestay with the world- as our international family is growing with every new arrival. We have a lot of other events to share – for example, our Mayu had her very first independent cooking experience in her life – and that is after her mum said to me  Mayu was not good at cooking !!! She is determined to be our family Chef now- slowly but surely.  I am forever grateful for the opportunity to meet so many amazing people from different parts of the world through  Homestay and help them feel like a home away from home and fall in love with Australia.