Homestay in Portland, Oregon

 

 

About Us 

Hello! There are four people in our family: Sara (49), Tim (49), Ethan (18), and Ben (14) plus our cat, Molly. We live in a house in Portland, Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest.

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Tim works at Xerox focusing on the manufacture of laser printers. Sara, a former teacher, works at a private school as an administrative assistant and also does volunteer work, mostly with the Japanese Immersion Program where Ben goes to school. Ethan completed high school this year and should have a job by this summer. Ben will finish middle school (8thgrade) in June and will have the summer off until school begins in late August.

 

We have all visited Japan at least once. Tim for work, Sara for vacation, and Ben and Ethan for school. Ben has been learning Japanese at school since he was 5-years-old and can help you out if you need to communicate something in English.

 

Our family enjoys watching sports (football, basketball, baseball), exercising (hiking, yoga, Zumba, skateboarding) and eating out (pizza is our favorite). We also just love to relax by cooking (baking, grilling), reading, playing cards and board games, or streaming a movie! We’re a fairly relaxed family but do enjoy the opportunity to show people around and try new things.

About Portland

Portland is a metropolitan city of almost 700,000 people. We have several colleges and universities, major research medical facilities and tech companies, professional soccer and basketball teams, many really good restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries and ice cream stores, and all kinds of art venues. Most people have a car but there are public transit systems (bus, trolley, light rail) that are convenient for getting around the main parts of town.

It is easy to get out of the city and get into nature. Mt. Hood is our famous mountain that is about an hour from Portland. We are also less than two hours from the Oregon coast where you will find many coastal towns and beaches. There are lots of parks, big and small, in and near Portland where people can go for a hike or walk, have picnics, play sports, and do water activities (kayaking, swimming, etc).

English Lessons

Lessons are 1-hour each day with a focus of learning a casual (conversational) form of the language, grammar, and pronunciation, as well as cultural differences between America and Japan. The lessons will be broken up to suit the activities for the day. You will:

1. Keep a travel diary of your experience

2. Build vocabulary 

3. Learn practical English language applications (Example: cooking instructions, directions, conversation - talking about likes and interests, useful phrases)

4. Practice simple grammar and/or pronunciation of commonly difficult words and sounds