Has anyone hosted overseas students and thrown in some English tuition?

[Bitzer]

Not sure if I'm in the right area but here goes:

I work from home part-time but will have a bit more capacity come September when youngest starts in full-time education. We have a spare room with en-suite bathroom, and it's been suggested to me that a good sideline might be to offer full board and lodging plus one or two hour's tutoring a day and the occasional 'cultural trip' to a foreign student wishing to learn English. We've had au pairs etc over the years so are quite comfortable with another person in the house and I think it's something I would actually really enjoy. It would also give me a very flexible source of income on top of the editorial work I already do. We're based in central London and all have a high level of English ? I have teaching experience as well as 10+ years experience of writing & editing so I'd think we'd be quite a good proposition as a host family.

Has anyone done anything like this? And if so do you/did you enjoy it? What are the pros and cons? And what do you think would be the going weekly rate? I've been on lots of host family sites but they are mostly catering for people who are just offering accommodation.

Very grateful for any thoughts/experiences

Might try another area of the site but bumping just on the off-chance...

I know people who have come to the UK using the Erasmus/Leonardo Exchange Programme where an intermediary agency has arranged for accommodation and tuition within a household. The "host" family then received an monetary incentive, but I have no idea how much.

I don't know much about hosting and providing lessons in the Uk, but I know if definitely exists and it sounds like you would be the ideal person to do it. They might prefer that you have a TEFL qualification, so if the money ended up being worth it, you could look into doing the Cambridge CELTA or the Trinity TESOL cert, which are the two main ones.

I think it would also be a positive experience for your DC as there will be more exposure to people from other languages.

I would pay attention to where the students are coming from and whether their culture fits with yours. But I guess you are already used to that from when you were hiring your au pairs. I remember having a Japanese student when I was younger, who was completely lovely, but made a complete racket while he was eating at the table, slurping and the like. Now in the days of Wagamama we know that he was being polite, but at the time my dad ended up not being able to sit at the table at the same time as he couldn't bear it.

We also had an au pair from Italy, though this isn't indicative of Italians by any means, who had such poor table manners that our DC picked up on them and started to copy. So there are repurcussions. But of course there's a lot more to this than eating with them.

We've hosted lots of young students from various places inc italy, germany, turkey and so on. Happy to say we've never had any bad experiences, in fact we really enjoyed doing it. But we only did short bookings, I think the longest was 1 month and maybe if I'm honest that did start to drag a little bit, mainly because he never ever went out and ate with us for every single mealtime! Plus we had a new baby at the time so were a bit too exhausted to cope with broken english conversations all evening, every evening. Rates of pay can be good, especially with an en-suite, I think from memory we were receiving just under £200 pw including meals etc. On the language side, I have a good friend who charges £15 an hour for learning English, so maybe that's a guide. Might be more in London though.

Good luck!

I was a professional in this field so can help you Firstly -forgive me if this sounds racist - but if you are White British and also "Middle Class"then you will be snapped up as this is what the students want The Tefl industry is not renowned for being fair or multicultural and is largely a money making industry which likes smiling students This is business and they are customers Secondlyenquire with one of the schools that offer Homestay/Private tuition packages I think Regent school may offer you both the training in teaching one to one and then the students so you can get a safe start There is another company called Intuition which may also help I should imagine if you Google you will find several others doing it but Regent are good THe Celta is a good course but is largely for people who want to teach groups It is a hard course and if you only want to teach specialised one to one then you may not need this the best Celta Course is run by International house by the way There is a huge demand for Executive English and if you have an ensuite this is ideal You are on a winner here!!

I have been hosting foreign language students since being a SAHM so 5 years now. I live in Bath, lots of language schools so the students trot off every day for lessons/trips. I provide breakfast and dinner, so sit and chat to them in English while we eat. After dinner they have their own sitting room so can hang out there - dont feel am paid enough to spend all evening with them! Teenagers are definitely the best, they are not needy and you slot into parent/teacher role so are definitely in charge. I did host over 60s but we hated it the dynamics were all wrong and they wanted to spend too much time with us

Have had a few ups and downs but it works for us. Could not do it if I only had one sitting room though couldnt bear to have people watching tv with us in the evenings. We are one of the most popular home stays now so must be doing something right.

I am currently earning £520 per week. They never stay more than a month which I like, some months don't have any, again which I like as income nice to have rather than essential and wouldnt want them all the time. If you live in London there will be lots of schools - am with Kaplan who have a London branch too. HTH!

Sorry forgot to return to this thread so v glad to come back and find so many more helpful responses. All the insights are v useful indeed, thanks so much folks:

kerala is that £520 per student or for several students? And if so, how many do you take at one time? Thanks for the Kaplan recommendation.

putthatbookdown thanks v much for the recommendations, much appreciated