WASHINGTON—Laura Straub is a very worried woman. Her job is to find families for French teenagers who expect to live with American families in the summer. It is not easy, even hopeless. “We have many children left to place—40 out of 75,” said Straub, who works for a Paris-based foreigner-exchange program started 50 years ago. Family life was more than accommodating (提供膳宿). For one thing, more mothers stayed at home. But now, increasing numbers of women work outside the home. Exchange-student programs have struggled in recent years to sign up host (主人) families for the 30 000 teenagers who every year come from abroad to spend a school year in the United States, as well as the thousands more who take part in summer programs. School systems in many parts of the U.S., unhappy about accepting non-taxpaying students, have also strictly limited the number of exchange students they accepted. At the same time, the idea of hosting foreign students is becoming less exotic. In search for host families, who usually receive no pay, exchange programs are increasingly broadening their requests to include everyone from young couples to retirees. “We are open to many different types of families,” said Vickie Weiner, eastern area director for ASSE, a 25-year-old program that sends about 30 000 teenagers on school-year exchange programs worldwide. For elderly people, exchange students “keep us young—they really do”, said Jen Foster, who is hosting 16-year-old Nina Post from Denmark. 小题1:The underlined word “exotic” means _________.
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