Friday, May 29, 2009

Mojo Mom Podcast with The New Global Student

I've really enjoyed getting to know Maya Frost, and I highly recommend her book The New Global Student for all parents, whether or not you are already thinking about giving your child an international educational experience.

Maya is my guest this week on The Mojo Mom Podcast, and I hope you'll listen in.

Listen to the podcast now:



The Mojo Mom Podcast goes global this week. First, Amy checks in with guest co-host Patty Ayers, about Patty's ongoing adventures as an empty-nest North Carolina Mom turned global citizen living in Mexico. Patty is a web designer who has untethered herself from her desk to create a business as a virtual assistant that will allow her to work anywhere in the world.

The Mojo Mom interviews Maya Frost, author of the book "The New Global Student: Skip the SAT, Save Thousands on Tuition, and Get a Truly International Education." Maya addresses the WHYs and HOWs of creating an international opportunity for your children or whole family. Maya speaks from experience. She and her husband moved from Portland, Oregon to Mexico and then Argentina with their four teenage daughters.


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1 Comments:

Anonymous Institute of Modern Spanish said...

Dear MojoMom

Me llamo Janese Cerón.

As a junior in high school 20 years ago, I was accepted as a Rotary International Exchange Student. I had had two years of high school Spanish (I got A's, but wish I had studied harder), so I signed up to go to Mérida, a city located in the Méxican state of Yucatán (Iowa's Sister State), a place I'd never heard of, but now love.

My parents were worried, but determined to let me have the experience. So, wearing my obligatory navy-blue blazer, I boarded a plane for Houston, then on to Mérida, where I found a Spanish Colonial city about three times the size of Des Moines.

My host family welcomed me, and I enrolled in Colegio Peninsular Roger’s Hall where I made friends and struggled forward with my Spanish, starting almost at "ground zero." By year's end I was quite fluent. At Roger's I was assigned to a cohort of about 20 students and we attended classes together, moving from room to room to greet our profesors & profesoras with smiles and (on most days) eager minds.

To shorten the story: The experience motivated me to major in Spanish in college (Truman State University, 1995) and applied linguistics for a MA at Iowa State University (1997). I hope you’re encouraging study abroad for your students. Or, I hope too that you’re thinking of sponsoring a group of promising students.

When I moved to Mérida, my husband Miguel (Simpson College, 1991) and I started the Institute of Modern Spanish and we've already celebrated our 13th anniversary - of the Institute and of our wedding.

Wow, what an experience. We've now hosted hundreds upon hundreds of interesting students from all over the world – high school and college students, their teachers; retired folks; PhD candidates in anthropology and Latin American studies; families; church groups, etc. etc. We are always looking for individuals and groups who want to learn or improve their Spanish, experience Yucatan's wondrous culture and possibly stay for a while to help us teach English to local students.

Last April, a student group from CA blogged at: http://faismerida2009.blogspot.com/. Check it out and share it with your own students. These student did a good job of documenting excursions, less well documenting their classroom work.

Feel free to contact me with any question where I might be helpful to you.

Best Wishes,

Janese

12:54 PM  

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