When going camping, you can travel hundreds of miles, cross borders and finally find a nice spot by the sea only to discover that the spot next to you is occupied by someone from your hometown. There goes your opportunity to practice your Spanish as you will end up discussing football for the rest of the week.

It can be the same with language schools ; and it is up to the school to make sure that they have a good mixture of nationalities. The best classroom is one where everyone speaks a different native language, and everyone has to use their new language skills to practice.

Around the world, the countries from which the most student study abroad are usually Korea, Japan & Switzerland. A good school will make sure that no nationality will go over 30% of its students, but this can be quite hard. For example, the Cambridge exams are very popular in Switzerland , and these courses only have three intakes (January, March & September). So a quiet country school can suddenly be filled with Swiss students working hard to pass the CAE & FCE exams.

Of course, having a few fellow country men and woman has its benefits. They might know how to cook great food from home, in exchange for you doing the dishes.