The homestay (寄宿家庭) provides English language students with the good chance to speak English outside the classroom and the experience of being part of an American home.

What to Expect

    The host will provide places to live and meals. Rooms will be cleaned every day. And the host is there to offer help and advice on your physical and mental (精神的) health.

Living Area

    Host families are mainly in Zones 2, 3 and 4. Most hosts don't live in Zone 1 because much of central New York is trading centre. Zones 3 and 4 often offer larger houses in uncrowded areas. But it's very convenient to travel to the centre of New York by subway.

Meal Plans

    It's important to know that few American families still provide a traditional cooked breakfast. Your breakfast mainly includes fruit juice, bread and coffee. Cheese, fruit and cold meat are not part of the breakfast. Dinners are usually made up of meat or fish with vegetables followed by dessert, fruit and coffee.

Friends

    If you want to invite a friend to visit you, you must ask your host for permission first, because some families feel uncomfortable when there are strangers at their home.

    Dubai is a city of big business, expensive hotels, skyscrapers (摩天大楼), and shopping malls. In the early 20tb century, Dubai was a successful trading port. People from the world stopped in Dubai to do business. But it was still a small city, and most people lived as fishermen and businessmen. Then in 1966, oil was discovered. This brought a lot of money into the area, and soon Dubai began to change.

    Today Dubai is one of the world's most important business centers. In fact, each year the city gets its money mainly from business, not oil.

    Recently Dubai has attracted more and more visitors from abroad. They come to relax on its beaches, and every year, millions visit just to go shopping.

    Dubai is also one of the world's fastest growing cities. Many tall buildings are built in months. The city also has many man made islands. One of these, the Palm Jumeirah, is like a palm tree(棕榈树) and is very beautiful.

    The city is still and amazing mix (混合体) of people from different countries. The people from 150 countries live and work in Dubai, and foreigners now outnumber Dubai natives(本地人) by eight to one!

    Many people welcome the city's growth. But an increasing number of Dubai natives worry about the speed of change. As a Dubai native says, "We must always remember where we came from. Our kids must know we worked very, very hard to get where we are now, and there's a lot more work to do. "

    Sometimes you feel unhappy. You may forget how great you are. What should you do? {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    ◆Do something helpful for someone. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    ◆Look in the mirror and say to yourself. "I am a special person and there is no one like me in the world. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}" It may not sound so good, but it really works!

    ◆Start to write diaries. Turn off the TV the let your imagination（想象力）fly! Write down your thoughts，dreams or anything you want! Writing always helps to express（表达）your feelings.

    ◆Smile! Be friendly to people you meet. Look for the god things in your friends and family. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} We all need our family time. Talk with your mom or dad or maybe even your cousin.

    ◆Learn something new! Have you always wanted to design（设计）your own room or to learn how to swim?   

{#blank#}5{#/blank#} New challenges（挑战）are fun. They can also give you a feeling of satisfaction when you have finished.

Travelling is interesting. There are many ways to travel: by plane，by train，by ship or by car. Let's see what people think of these ways. 

 When you think of the sea, you may not think of Xinjiang or Inner Mongolia. But recently, the" seafood" produced in these places has become popular, especially after Japan put muclear- contaminated water(核污染水) into the sea, reported China Daily.

 In Nilka county(尼勒克县) in Xinjiang, about 6,000 tons of rainbow trout(虹鳟鱼) will be produced this year. Rainbow trout belongs to the same family as salmon(鲑鱼), which is a kind of well- known seafood. It tastes like salmon too.

 Why do farmers there choose to grow fish? The weather in some parts of Xinjiang is seldom hot, and the rivers are fed by meltwater(融水) from the Tianshan Mountains. Water deeper than 6 meters always stays at 10 C. As the meltwater is very clean and cold, it's a" comfortable" home for fish, Li Chunyu, a worker at a fish company in Xinjiang, told China Daily.

 To make sure the river stays clean, the company uses machines to clean fish waste in the water. They also use net cages(网箱) that are good for the environment. The net s are about 51 meters wide and lie 25 meters deep in the river.

 Meanwhile, in Inner Mongolia, whitele g shrimp(南美白对虾) grows well. Saline soil(盐碱土) covers a large part of the desert where few plants are able to grow. Farmers used to put water from the Yellow River onto the farmland to wash away the salt. This was a waste of salty water.

 Scientists then decided to create" seawater" with the salty water by adding in some other components. Whiteleg shrimps can live well in this kind of water. They taste no different from the same kind of shrimp that grows in the sea.