Visitors to School from Overseas

[80sChav]

Did any other member's have visitors from Overseas to your School? At my first Secondary, we did when I was in the the First Year (Year 7) which I have only just for some reason recalled it and am thinking more about it. I recall it wa never announced that the visiting students were (I think from Germany) , it sure was a great afternoon too as I recall the Coach pulling in at School very well.

I felt so pleased one of the students agreed to be a Pen Pal until some horrible (highly probable 3rd Year I think i'm recalliing) other kid stole the piece of paper with the details of the person who I had swapped with.

At least I was happy for that few minutes, not as it bother's me now all these year's later one bit, but it sure was a real fun time at the point in time of being 11/12 and swapping address' to recieve a letter may be from overseas, what with not knowing the students was due too - I guess a once in a lifetime experience how great friendship's often start

Thanks for any replies,

80sChav

[HG]

Re: Visitors to School from Overseas

I can remember having an American from Pennsylvania teacher come into our infant school to teach for a day or two, she left us a penny coin (american cent) which I kept for many years.

In primary we had a priest from South Africa come and take assembly one day, unfortunately nobody could understand his accent.

We had various foreign exchange students too in secondary, mainly French.

[Richard1978]

Re: Visitors to School from Overseas

I remember we had a French student came into one of our French lessons so we could try & speak to her in French, not sure if she understood any of us very well!

Also so Mormons came into school assembly, the play the did about the importance of believing in god was too camp to take seriously, & got a lot of laughs.

[Trickyvee]

Re: Visitors to School from Overseas

A friend's cousin came to our primary school for a few months while her parents were over from South Africa visiting family. What struck me was a) her funny accent and b) the fact that she was white! I thought everybody from Africa was black at that point!

In high school we had an exchange with some German kids. I got a crush on one of them (as you do) and was horrified when he went off with the poor ugly girl who was the lowest of the low and always got picked on. Nobody could believe it! She was so far down on the rungs no boy ever gave her a second glance. He was pretty good looking too. It was like a fairy tail, but I was gutted.

[themilkman]

Re: Visitors to School from Overseas

We had a big game hunter from South Africa come to our school and give a talk about it, he'd made some documetaries apparently........can't see that happening now.

[victorbrunswick]

Re: Visitors to School from Overseas

I remember there was a girl from Sweden who was an exchange student. I felt a little sorry for her because though she graduated in our class she still had another year of high school when she returned to Sweden.

[battyrat]

Re: Visitors to School from Overseas

Secondary school we had Spanish exchange students which we all thought was rather odd as most of us were learning French or German at that time.A very dissagreeable fellow who we were very very glad to get rid of.We were supposed to include him in our activities but the chap was too scared to mess up his permed hair or get dirty fingernails and never wanted to get involved with anything.Pity really as that summer we had a lot of fun playing around in the countryside.He used to just walk around after us kicking his heels in whenever he could just to hold us back.I think one of my old mates suggested in the end we use an old concrete water outlet pipe near our local stream as a hideout,which we did.It was large enough to crawl through and ended in a large square room under the road nearby.We rigged it out with crates to sit on along the walls.The Spanish fellow just stood around outside for days,too scared of a few dangling spiders webs.Well if he did not want to join in with us we would find a way of getting rid of him for a few hours.To be honest nobody really wanted an outsider in the gang,and it was only my mates parants that thought it was a good idea.Funny thing is when we went back to school after summer holidays we all ended back in French lessons again.The mind boggles even after all these years why we ended up with Spanish exchange students when most of us were learning French.

[Moondog]

Re: Visitors to School from Overseas

yeah when i was at secondary we had to write to some Swedish kids who would become our school pen pals, they then came over from Sweden, and you had to take your pen pal home for tea, it was actually a good laugh.

[Sly]

Re: Visitors to School from Overseas

I had a lad called Sinclair. He played the steel drums. I still have no idea what country he came from. I just knew he wasn't British, seeing as nobody could understand a word he was saying. We learnt him to ride a bike. He was also incredibly talented at Street Fighter II on the SNES.

[darren]

Re: Visitors to School from Overseas

sadly i dont remember this happening at tjhe schools i went to.

sounds great fun mate taking them home for tea.

did they understand english that6 well.
im sure they must have known it a bit.

it seems you can remember it well must be at least 20 yrs back.

yeah when i was at secondary we had to write to some Swedish kids who would become our school pen pals, they then came over from Sweden, and you had to take your pen pal home for tea, it was actually a good laugh.

[Shado66]

Re: Visitors to School from Overseas

We had a few german kids in our school on an exchange visit. I'm from Coventry so we were told before hand to be on best behavior. It all went to pot on a history visit though when we were being shown round the medieval places of the city. One of the German kids made the mistake of asking if Coventry had a castle. One kid replied...yes..but it was pulled down a few centuries before your lot got round to it.

[Moondog]

Re: Visitors to School from Overseas

did they understand english that6 well.
im sure they must have known it a bit.

it seems you can remember it well must be at least 20 yrs back.

his English wasn't bad, i remember his name was Olaf.

yeah it was nearly 20 years ago but i have a great memory

[staffslad]

Re: Visitors to School from Overseas

I remember we had a German girl in our class for a term or so, probably in 3rd year of secondary school. This was the mid-70s and sad to say she got some ribbing about WW2 from some in the class and got upset. I remember the ones who did it got a real roasting from the Headmaster.

[victorbrunswick]

Re: Visitors to School from Overseas

We had a few german kids in our school on an exchange visit. I'm from Coventry so we were told before hand to be on best behavior. It all went to pot on a history visit though when we were being shown round the medieval places of the city. One of the German kids made the mistake of asking if Coventry had a castle. One kid replied...yes..but it was pulled down a few centuries before your lot got round to it.

Sounds like it was a Basil Fawlty moment.