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Original poster

have any MNers been a 'host family' for foreign students and if so

23 replies

ska · 09/04/2007 12:14

any hints and tips? I'm thinking about it for the summer holidays and want to know where can you 'get' foreign students from? Do you have to have similar age kids? How much do you get paid (I wouldn't want to end up out of pocket!)? Any bad experiences? Do you need to live near a big town? And basically any other information you have!

I thought it'd be good company perhaps for my lone DD (the 2 DSC will be away with their mum's family) and as we are all trying to improve our French it might be rather fun. But we don't live anywhere near a big city.

OP posts:

lucy5 · 09/04/2007 12:19

Have you got language schools near you? How old is your dd?

The students normally have a lot of activities so I wouldn't think they would be around much. You can chose if the age range though. I don't know if sparkler ever did it but she was thinking about it. my mum used to do it when we were kids I always enjoyed having different people around, although one did get badly beaten up once which was sad.

Squonky · 09/04/2007 12:19

I did it twice about ten years ago when dd1 was little. I lived about six miles away from the school the student had to go to, and was expected to take him to school and pick him up again. On one day, he went to a different school about twenty miles away and I was expected to take him there, too.

Both boys were lovely, but I haven't kept in touch with either of them.

They are here to practice their English, so you are asked not to try to talk to them in their language (one of mine was French, one was Spanish).

There was also an end of trip disco that I helped to supervise.

It was good fun, and I would do it again if circumstances allowed it. The money wasn't enough to justify doing it if you don't enjoy it, although I wasn't out of pocket, even taking into account petrol costs, etc.

If you contact your local council they should have details. I got mine through an advert in the local paper, and as I say it was a while ago, so things may have changed.

hope this helps

Original poster

ska · 09/04/2007 12:24

Squonky, which bit of te local council? Education department? My dd is 8 and really enjoyed having my DSD french exchange student for the weekend recently - thi swas a one off as normally she would have stayed at my dsd's mum's house (complicated) and it made me think it'd be nice to host in the summer. When I was at school lots of families we knew did it but they had a spare room! (and we will in the summer)

OP posts:

lucy5 · 09/04/2007 12:25

Google language schools in your area or near your area, they are often desperate for host families.

paulaplumpbottom · 09/04/2007 12:27

When I was in high school we had an exchange student stay with us. It was brilliant and I learned alot from her. She was from Brazil and very exotic to all my friends. I think its an amazing thing to do.

Original poster

ska · 09/04/2007 12:47

great, so what would be great would be names of organisations MNers have got students from. I've googled and found very few local to me! Are there any national companies anyone knows of?

OP posts:

Pruni · 09/04/2007 12:48

Message withdrawn

Pruni · 09/04/2007 12:48

Message withdrawn

Original poster

ska · 09/04/2007 12:55

Live in Herts - near Stevenage, Hitchin and St Albans a bit further. 30 mins from both London and Cambridge

OP posts:

lulumama · 09/04/2007 12:56

oh! started a thread about this recently ! will wait to see what more responses you get!

Califrau · 09/04/2007 13:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

noddyholder · 09/04/2007 13:17

We did this a couple of years ago for about 3 months.It was great we had two at a time and we got £100 each.they were out mostly and I cooked a meal for all of us every night.Ds is an only child so he loved it.I saved the money and we went to greece for 3 weeks island hopping Well worth it

Squonky · 09/04/2007 13:20

sorry, ska, only just come back to this after playing with the dcs in the garden. As I said, I saw an advert in the local paper, so I don't really know which part of the council, although the education dept would be my first guess.

sorry

Original poster

ska · 09/04/2007 13:20

Sorry lulumama, did a search for threads and didn't come up with anything.

noddyholder - who did you do it through? which school?

OP posts:

lulumama · 09/04/2007 13:23

no not a problem at all, ska, i only got a few responses

Original poster

ska · 09/04/2007 14:29

bump. trying to find companies/organisations who MNers recommend to try!

OP posts:

Pruni · 09/04/2007 14:48

Message withdrawn

stargate · 09/04/2007 16:15

did one xmas - 2 very hard weeks with 2 15yr old japanese girls. got just shy of £500 (inc a "bonus" for the bank holidays) - but spent most of this back on food etc. couldn't have done it if i had been working because of picking up dropping off at school. had a long list of preferred foods and also a n incredible list of food for their daily packed lunch - had to choose so many items from each of 4 lists!!

think it works best if your dcs are the same sort of age - then activities can continue as normal with extra person.

found out that they had read a basic tour book of england and only wanted to eat scones and fish and chips and visit windosr castle!

found in local paper - think still have one around, hang on..

stargate · 09/04/2007 16:17

another one

cicero languages international - [email protected]

this is local to me (oxfordshire) but not the one I used.

stargate · 09/04/2007 16:20

just running through the paper -

oxford language centre - www.olcoxford.co.uk

email [email protected]

requiring host families for june july and august for 12 - 30 yrolds. prob still too far out but may point in right direction

KTeePee · 09/04/2007 17:25

ska, don't know the name of the company but I have definitely seen ads in the local papers for your area in the past, looking for host families....

Another option is to take in a boarder from a local school during the holidays - sometimes they have come from abroad for their secondary education and don't always go home in the holidays so need a local family to stay with.

Original poster

ska · 09/04/2007 17:26

stargate, you really are a star! thanks. Interesting that you found it hard work - the info i found on one website suggests that you don't actually get much contact with the students because of their social and learning engagements - we'd like to have someone around and as we love france we'd quite like a french student (but understand that they need to learn english!)I don't work in the summer hols so driving them around would be ok

OP posts:

Elasticwoman · 09/04/2007 17:37

Haven't read whole thread but here's my experience:

Took 16 yo student as Paying Guest through local 6th form college which has an annual exchange going on with another school in Germany. There are always more Germans wanting to come here than vice versa, so they need extra families. Our kids are not similar age to that.

I was paid £15 a day to provide bed + 3 meals a day, including packed lunch.

Mistake I made was telling him he could stay out till 11 pm which meant dh or I had to stay up longer than we would like. Student will want to go out and be with his peers, but last time when I stipulated 10.30 pm it worked better.

Student will want to practise their English, so don't count on improving your French.

In the scheme we were in, much of the student's time was taken up in organised activities. There was only one day when we were expected to entertain him.

I've done it twice and both times the student was polite and pleasant to have around, but the second time I did worry when he was out later than agreed.

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