I started this thread following a discovery I made during an AIBR thread.
This is what I thought an au-pair was:
A young woman between the ages of 16-26, going to a country to live with a family, with the primary aim to learn its language and its culture, by attending a recognised English course for a minimum of 10 hours a week. Like a student, but instead of the student paying the host for lodgings, the au-pair lives free of charge with a family, in exchange for doing free childcare and paid pocket money of up to £70 per week (in other words, £10 per day) for doing light household chores (e.g vacuum cleaning the children's bedroom, preparing the children's meals, tidying up children's bedroom, doing children's ironing).
Apparently, this is not the case. They are now employees, doing a nanny's job but being paid an hourly rate rather than a salary.
Does this mean that a modern au-pair no longer needs to attend college to learn English?
This has completely thrown me. I will google some more tomorrow morning but I am interested, seeing that I am a part-time childminder, I should know these things. 
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