Japan Summer Programs (High School): Parents FAQ

How much supervision is in the program?
Is Tokyo a safety city?
How are your host families chosen?
How do the flight and the airport pickup work?
What kind of group is this summer program?
Is there someone in Japan that we can reach in the case of emergency?
How do I know the quality of your program?

How much supervision is in the program?
For the Youth Immersion Program, students are supervised and chaperoned by the trip leader or school staff during classes and trips, and by host families at night and in the weekends. The time they are alone is normally when they commute to school or go back to host family. All students are given emergency contacts, and students are checked for their arrival to the classes in the morning and returning the host families in the evening.
Students in the Culture Discovery Programs are expected to be more independent, as this group is a mix of higher schoolers and college age students. They are supervised during the days of the classes and trips. Class attendance are monitored. However, there are more free time that students may spend on their own (often with their new friends), for example, in some afternoons and weekends.
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Why your program is in Tokyo?
Tokyo, a city with a mix of traditional and modern culture, has a lot to show our young students, from the traditional Asakusa Kannon Temple to Anime-Crazy Akihabara, etc. Not only it is the most famous city in Japan, it is also one of the safetiest cities in the world.
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How are your host families chosen?
Due to the program design, we have two different groups of host families.
For the Culture Discovery Program, all the families in this group have interest in sharing the Japanese culture with international students and they are background checked, their houses are inspected so that we make sure that they provide a comfortable living to our students. The program provides a mixed experience of structured culture activities and trips, along with homestay.

 In the Youth Immersion Program, the program requires intensive involvement of the host families to provide an immerse language and culture experience to the students, thus we have a high expectation to the host families. All the host families in the group belong to a local culture exchange organization, thus we have known the families for many years and they go through training in hosting our students. The families are committed to spend time with our students to support their language learning and explore local culture with the students in the weekends.

For both programs, we will send you the host family information before your child leave for Japan so that they have communicated with and have known the family.
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How do the flight and the airport pickup work?
We will need your child’s flight information and we will pick his/her up at the Tokyo Airport (usually the Narita Airport). There will be airport maps, directions on meeting points and emergency contact number in case of flight delays or missing us. We also let students who fly from the same city or flight to connect each other so that they can fly together if they want.
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What kind of group is this summer program?
Our students are in the similar age and the majority come from North America, but there are also students from other countries, it is a great way to make new friends. Our groups are major groups in Tokyo, with each group at 20 students or more, and everyone stays for the same dates thus they stay with their new friends during the whole period of the program.
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Is there someone in Japan that we can reach in the case of emergency?
Yes, there will be emergency contact information. For the Culture Discovery program, you can contact us through our head office or the host family, there is also orientation on issues related to safety on the first day at school. For the Youth Immersion program, you will have the contacts of the trip leader on site and the host family. The trip leader will connect with everyone in the group before the program start date to let everyone knows each other, and there will be group orientation and gathering in Japan upon arrival after airport pickup.
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How do I know the quality of your program?
Being an organization dedicated to Asian languages, we work hard to offer programs with high standard. Our host organizations/schools in Japan are either non-profit or accredited school in the country, and they have hosted our groups for more than 10 years. The experience from our students speaks itself. We think that those videos student made, our Facebook pages on the experiences give you an vivid and unbiased information and opinion on our programs. Or if you have some more detailed questions, feel free to contact us or we can get you to connect to our last year students to personally ask about the experience.
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