EF International Language Schools

I was in Brussels’s airport to start my adventure in San Francisco, asking myself lots of questions about this trip, I didn’t yet realize that I was going away for 9 months without my parents, my brother, my family or my friends. I was happy to adventure in San Francisco, but I was afraid to leave my habits. In Belgium, I met other students going to San Francisco so I wasn’t alone on the airplane. We crossed the continent together; we were a small group so I was a little less nervous.
After long minutes in the car direction my accomodation, I was in front of one house in Daly City with the driver. My heart was racing, it was a horrible feeling. When I could see the owner of the house, I was relieved because she looked so nice. Together with her, there were three other girls and they looked so happy to see me. They showed me my bedroom and they wanted to talk to me but I couldn’t understand anything. I looked so stupid because I always said «I don’t understand», it was a crazy situation. At this moment, I asked myself, «why had I never studied English before San Francisco?! I should have studied it.»
The first day of school, I was very stressed, but I was going to San Francisco with my housemates which was really nice. My host mother’s sister came with us to show us the way. We did a quick tour of the city with them. In the evening, I called my mother and my father and explained the situation. My mother said that she was happy because she knew that everything going to be okay. Then she told me that I shouldn’t have been so nervous.
When I started to go to the classes and spend time at school, the few first weeks were difficult for me because I couldn’t speak English. My level was one of the lowest and since my inscription I have been saying that I don’t want to stay with French speakers. When I was in Belgium, I decided it because I realized how lucky I was to live this experience that not everyone can live and my goal has been to speak English very well before going back to my country. I’m happy to see how my English has already been improving since my first day. When I’m in class, I try to be focused and learn as much as possible but that’s not the only benefit I have in class. In the classrooms, the teachers and the students are great. Outside of school, I have good times with my schoolmates. We explore SF, we shop, we go to restaurants and parties, and we speak ENGLISH. When we are 19 years old, that’s what we love.
The most beautiful thing for me here is that I have met a lot of people from different countries. There is a lot of diversity and different cultures. I like to learn about them. I have learned a lot of about religion, food, ideas, and traditions. I can see how it’s different in each country but I can also see how it’s beautiful with many people can agree all together and share good times. I love trying food from different countries. I have tried Arabic food, Japanese food, Brazilian food, and Filipino food. I have also cooked Belgian food (my home country). It’s wonderful to share your life with the world.
Two moments that I’ll never forget were the Thanksgiving and Christmas parties. When I was in Belgium, I chose to be housed in a host family because I wanted to discover the American’s life and I was so curious to learn about the traditions. I really wanted to see how Thanksgiving was but also to see Christmas here. Thanksgiving day, my host mother brought us to her sister’s house. Everybody looked so happy to be together with family. I don’t have a big family, so all the family parties are small and this celebration was so big. All the generations were talking together, playing, laughing, and eating. It was really cool. For Christmas party, it was almost the same as Thanksgiving but it was even more interesting to see how it unfolded and compare differences between this country and mine.
This is a small part of my experience, if you want to know more about one year in another country, come discover it yourself.

Hey my name is Reginald and I from Belgium.
I’m currently in san francisco Ef to learn English. I begin September 14, 2015 and I finished 13 May 2016 at the beginning my English was really bad and today I was much progress fat Ef. I love my live in school because it is a great place san francisco. The school is next to Fisherman warf. the second floor you have a magnificent view of the Golden Gate Bridge and when you’re on the street you see Alcatraz. what’s nice is people from all over the world, I can talk with them and discover a country other than my own. I travel to the US and meet people from around the world I travel again. I spent the best time of my life and I will leave but this time alone with my backpack. I advise you frankly what I live life by now.
Reginald

Great option to learn English and discover SF. The Staff is young and dynamic, all of them are very nice. The location is good (near to fisherman’s warf). I had some trouble with the residence (old building…) but they are listening and everyone try to help you, so I like that.

EF San Francisco is just a few steps away from Fisherman’s wharf. So if you’d like to, you have the opportunity to check out this famous place.
In addition there is a Starbucks, Walgreens, In and out Burger and many other stores to grab some food. If you take bus 30 you are in 20 minutes in Downtown.
I like to be in EF San Francisco, all employees are really friendly and help you wherever they can!
Even though they are trying their best it’s still kind of unorganized especially when the schedules change or new students arrive. Furthermore not all classes have a really good teacher! I paid so much money to come here and the sales office in Switzerland definitely promised too much.
It’s the same with the host families. Don’t have to high expectations because the way to school
Is mostly around 1h 30min, I pay 140 $ per month for public transport and the host family doesn’t really care about you.
All in all the organization has to become better and some teachers should be stricter and start to give real exercises. Currently it’s definitely overpriced. But still EF is a nice platform to meet new people and friends from all over the world. Even though my host mother doesn’t care about us, it’s a nice house with great EF people.

Many of my housmates, 8 out of 10, go to this school, and to be honest I’m a bit disgusted with how EF runs things. Of my housemates 5 of the 10 had to transfer to different living arrangements than the original ones assigned to them because of how horrible the living conditions were. 2 of them were almost raped by the host father of the family they were living with and when they reported this to EF they were told that they had no evidence and that they probably misunderstood the situation being that their English is not very good (and try we’re told that there have been other cases like theirs in the same house but being that EF is short on housing space for students, it remains open for new students to stay in)! To top this the other 3 loved in a house with 17 other people, and there was constant theft, and no food or toilet paper provided by the host family. EF says that they check in on the houses where the students are hosted about once a month but clearly they do not. Although my housemates have talked to the head of EF at their school and even in their home countries, they are simply brushed off. It is ridiculous that any institution would allow any of ther students to be in any such living conditions, especially when they are made aware of the problems again and again. EF as a school is a great place to learn English, but the extent to which they ignore ther students well-​being is sickening.