Hiring Au Pair With Poor English

[roses2]

Hi,

I am looking for an au pair to provide wrap around care for my two young children before and after school.

I've been interviewing a few although all seem to have fairly poor English.

I am only one week into my search but this is the general trend. I have found a few au pairs who do speak good English but they don't meet my requirements eg they need a lot of holiday which I can't accommodate with my full time job.

At the moment I have found a Spanish au pair who as fantastic experience, is currently attending English school in Spain and wishes to continue English school in the UK. But her English is very poor. As in so poor that I would not be confident that they could eg relay a message from a teacher or call for help if there was an accident.

Does anyone have experience of hiring an au pair who has very poor English to start off with?

How did it work out for you? Were you happy or did you regret it?

An alternative I was considering would be a two month trial period.

Most au pairs come to the UK to learn English.
Just get a phrase book, use the internet, etc. You'll get through it.

Chances are she will be fluent by Christmas.

If you can find one who's going to take English lessons at college and you can put the time in to explain things to them, it should be fine.

The ones who are very interested in English culture and are enthusiastic about the language are the ones who seem to pick it up the fastest. Try to choose someone you like as a person, as the more time you can spend talking with them (about everything, not just the childcare), the better their English will become and it's obviously also a richer experience for them - go with your instincts if you're not sure about someone.