Au Pairs Can Hone English With Trip to the U.S.
January 5, 2012
Leidiana Coelho of Vitoria, Brazil, knew that her English wasn’t perfect before she came to the U.S. as an au pair. Considering the important role the U.S. plays on the world stage, a growing number of people are learning English at earlier ages, and Leidiana, or Leidy for short, hoped to help other Brazilians learn English as a teach and through her own experiences abroad.
Leidy told the Albany, California Patch that despite her degree in English language and literature, she knew her pronunciation, among other things, needed work. Leidy thought the best solution was to spend time immersing herself in an English-speaking culture. The obvious choice to her was to spend a year in the U.S.
While coming to live in the U.S. for a longer period can sometimes prove a challenge, the Office of Immigration Statistics reports that there were nearly 3 million people, along with their families, who came to work in the country short-term in 2010. Most of these people worked in specialized fields or international branches of major companies, and several thousand of these short-term workers came through cultural exchange organizations
One of the most popular programs that bring internationals to the U.S. is the U.S. Department of State-sponsored au pair program. Focused on the benefits from cultural exchange that results from having someone from another country live with a family with young children, the Internal Revenue Service reports that the national program sponsor around 12,000 au pairs each year. Because of its federal sponsorship, the policy that allows such cultural exchange programs requires au pairs to take classes at an accredited higher education institute for a more comprehensive cultural immersion.
This worked perfectly for Leidy, who wanted to spend as much time speaking English as possible and could take advantage of the education stipend to take pronunciation classes. Leidy first spoke with her future host family, Briana and Greg of Albany, California, over Skype, but before long, the pair knew she would be a good match for the family’s three young daughters and invited her to stay with them for the year. Quickly, Leidy found herself accepted as a part of the family, spending weekends with the children or the parents and their friends.
Briana notes how much having Leidy around meant to her children.
"I come home every day to happy children who are proud to show me all the fun things they’ve created during their day with her," she says. "The greatest thing about Leidy is that she loves what she does, she takes pride in her work and tries her best at it everyday."
