Life@Kaplan: The best host family in the USA and Canada

This month, we launched a competition to find Kaplan's best Host Family in USA and Canada  in time for Mother's Day. Our winning entry was from Eunjeung Noh from South Korea, who is studying at our Kaplan Chicago school. Here's what Eunjeung had to say!

The winning family

I strongly insist that my host family should win the competition. Even now, I can't believe that I became a member of this GORGEOUS family. My host mom, who is called Jeanne, has a warm and honest heart. She treats me and every student she has had like a real daughter. She always cares for me and every student, even students that have left her house. She keeps in touch with them through e-mail and Skype, and she delivers messages to every student when it comes to their birthdays because she remembers EVERY STUDENT'S BIRTHDAY! She also enjoys telling us her stories related to students she’s had. Whenever I heard the stories, I can feel her warm heart. Besides, I've never heard any negative things from her about her students. She always refers them as 'sweet,' which is my host mom’s favorite word. (She always say to students 'sweetie, honey, or dear').

Let me introduce my story about her that I will never forget. I arrived in Chicago on January 2nd. It was horribly cold at that time. Even the Kaplan closed because of the severe cold and the next day, she worried about my first day of Kaplan because there were no students in her house who could explain to me how to get to there, and it was quite complicated to go to Kaplan from home with -22F cold. Therefore, she decided to go to school with me, taking subway and teaching me how to get there!!
If I were her, I wouldn’t have done that. I was so impressed and touched by her generosity.

She also understands well about foreign countries’ cultures. She can cook many foreign foods. She cooks Korean foods, which are bibimbab and bulgogi, whenever I want. She enjoys talking about our cultures with us and wants to try everything related to that. It makes me happy because we want to share and introduce our cultures with Americans even if we're here to learn American culture."

Stay tuned to our blog to find out more from the family, and find out about their prize - a special night out. Do you have a great host family story to share? We'd love to hear it!