One hundred and forty students from China are spending several weeks in Lakeland working on their English skills. They attend classes and activities five days a week and they live with local host families.

  • Chinese exchange students visit Lakeland
  • Students to live with host families
  • Students to work on English skills, attend classes

The children range in age from elementary to high school. The visits are run by an organization called Education First.

One of the students is sixth grader Yunze Du. While in the United States, he goes by the name Dean to make it easier for people to say his name. He is staying with host family Joel and Danyel Lieberman.

The Liebermans include Du in all their daily activities. He gets to help in meal preparation and play video games with the Lieberman’s son Chase.

The Liebermans hope to be good ambassadors by showing a side of American culture that someone like Du wouldn’t normally see in media depictions: The affectionate nature of their home life.

“And just let him know that here in the United States we are very affectionate and we want him to feel a part of that as well,” said Danyel Lieberman.

That is an idea echoed by Christina Pourroy. She has been hosting Chinese students for several years and is now one of the organizers of the annual visits. She recruits host families.

“We tend to be quite affectionate. And so that’s an area we definitely show them a lot of,” she said.

Joel Lieberman hopes Du has a wonderful experience while in Lakeland.

“So he goes back and says to his family, 'This host family was amazing,'” he said. “They were nothing that we thought of. They were 100 percent amazing and I didn’t think they were going to be the way they were.”