PHS Welcomes Students From All Around the World

Exchange Students

By: Chere Langeliers
September, 30th 2016

In years past PHS has had multiple exchange students. Phoenix High School has proudly had exchange students from Brazil, Denmark, The Netherlands, Germany and Spain. Many don’t know, but exchange students don’t get to pick where they live, and what school they go to. They just select USA as the country they want to go to and the exchange program chooses the state, city, and school for them. Luckily for us, this year at Phoenix High School, there are two new exchange students from Thailand and Belgium. PHS proudly welcomes Hugo and Jam to the home of the pirates.

Hugo Massart is from Belgium, Belgium is a country in Western Europe, it is known for medieval towns and its renaissance architecture. When Hugo started at PHS he said his first week was hard because it is hard to integrate with people. Also, his English speaking skills aren’t very strong, so it has been challenging for him to practice his English. We asked Hugo, “How is Phoenix compared to your old school?” Hugo responded, “It’s very different because in Belgium we don’t have all this stuff like weight training, welding, farm to school or all this school stuff so it’s very cool” Another question we asked Hugo was; “what do you think of the teachers?” Which Hugo then said that by comparison, “all the teachers are so nice. We have strict teachers in Belgium.” So by comparison, Phoenix high school is very different to him.

Jam is another one of the exchange students this year at PHS. Wattanai, also known as Jam, is from Thailand. Thailand is a Southeast Asian country. It’s known for tropical beaches, opulent royal palaces, ancient ruins and ornate temples displaying figures of Buddha. We asked Jam how his first week went, Jam said it was different but he liked it. We also asked Jam what he thought of his classmates and he said that they are nice PHS students and staff are nice and helpful. Then we asked him, Give us an example on how PHS is different from your school in Thailand, he said “In Thailand we stayed in one class and waited for the teacher to come in and teach, and at PHS you walk around to all of your different classes.” Then we asked Jam what his favorite thing about this place was compared to Thailand, he said “he likes the weather because it’s cooler here for him and Thailand is very hot and humid.” Here in Oregon,
we all know that Oregon is known for its rainy and cold weather in the fall.

These two are both from different parts of the world, so let’s show these two students our pirate pride. PHS is doing an amazing job making these two feel welcome, keep it up pirates! Both of these students were very shy and they took awhile to think and answer the questions, but were very kind and easy to talk to. PHS will have its doors open to any newcomers. We love to have such wonderful and intelligent Exchange students here at PHS.

 

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