Crowds of foreign exchange students are flooding Rio Hondo’s campus in hopes to gain more knowledge of the American culture and advance their English-speaking skills as a part of the International Study Tour (IST) program.

This year’s program features seven groups of students from different cities across China. With ages ranging between 12 and 21 years old, these exchange students are grouped together by gender and hometowns and paired with an evaluated home stay family.

Led by Ed and Kathleen Griffith, husband and wife, over 200 students are studying on Rio Hondo’s campus this summer with help of the Continuing Education Department.

In the mornings, between 8:30 a. m. and 11:30 a. m., the groups take part in an extensive set of English courses to help teach them the basic conversational phrases and establish the differences between the complex languages.

After their daily courses, the students head to the Rio Café to enjoy a meal prepared by the café staff. This meal period gives the eight chaperones working for IST time to prepare for their 12:15 p. m. excursions in Southern California.

While six of the groups are a part of the program via studies and outings, one group from Chongqing, China is only participating on the educational platform.

Destinations for the remaining six groups include Disneyland, Universal Studios, USC, Little Tokyo, Rodeo Drive of Beverly Hills, Seal Beach, Citadel Outlets, and many more.

The current students and several more will be leaving and arriving throughout August, so if you catch a group of them on campus, please feel free to greet them and make them a part of the Rio experience.