Au Pairs Language school

[floozygirl]

Looking for some advice on language schools - Have an au pair - 1st time - and she is saying that they are very expensive. Are there any discounts/offers available to aupairs? Is there any expectation host families should contribute? Was not expecting that we needed to.

Private language schools where they have lessons every day are very expensive. Have a look at your local adult education services and see what they provide - these are cheap or in some cases free.
Also check out the uni near you if there is one. Ours allows members of the public to attend some of its classes and we are trying to get our AP into one of these - they're priced reasonably.

The agency we used says that they think an AP shouldn't have to spend more than £10 a week on lessons, so we are paying a little extra to top it up. There isn't an expectation that you would pay for a 5 day a week private language school.

All our AP's go to the local adult education college and do the ESOL Cambridge Certificate. We pay (part of our package, we need to entice decent AP's in to the sticks) £125 per term for 2 x 2hours of classes per week. This gives them a qualification which means something on their uni applications etc, so I feel it is worthwhile. I do feel if they were expected to pay the full cost of this then it would seriously eat in to their pocket money. The college is a short journey by train - I buy them a railcard and then I expect them to buy their fares. So far all have agreed that this is a fair set up and seems to keep them happy.

Apparently the costs of English classes have shot up this year.
I posted a similar question a few weeks ago thinking that our local college was being unreasonable but was assured that many classes have increased significantly.

Last year my AP was given a large discount by the college but its not available this year due to a change in the funding.

Hi there in our area we have something called WORKNET its part of that learning group that advertise on tv LEARNDIRECT.

The language courses are FREE...The AP's simply pay £20 when they take any tests.

Try googling and see if you have any in your area.

HTH