Host foreign exchange students and summer students on Lingoo’s host family program. It’s an entirely flexible way to earn extra income, experience new cultures, and make new friends from around the world by hosting them in your home. It involves no long-term commitments. Joining is free and subject to validation. You choose to host foreign students, children, teenagers, adults or family groups in your own home.
As host, your role is to provide a warm welcome, accommodation and meals, help guests practice their language skills, and experience your culture through everyday home life. So whether you want to host foreign students for the summer or welcome guests all year round, becoming a Lingoo host is the ideal, flexible option.
Watch our video presentation , hear what our hosts and teachers say or download a brochure to read later.
Children and adults
Our host families range from the traditional – with two adults and one or more children – to one-parent families, young couples without children, retired couples and people who live alone.
The Lingoo host family program is looking for hosts that can:
• Can provide a welcoming family atmosphere to young people or adult guests from abroad
• Can provide guests with their own room, where possible, and home-cooked meals
• Have no formal language teaching qualifications but could help someone build confidence in their language skills (if you are a qualified language teacher, please click here ).
• Can help guests, or their parents, organise a suitable local language course, if requested
• Can offer stimulating activities, from hobbies and sports to fun day trips.
Read our simple hosting checklist to help you decide Read our guide to money, tax and other important issues for host families and teachers.
Registration is FREE, subject to validation. Go to our Host Family member page to learn more. You can also find out more about the Lingoo community and how it works by visiting our FAQs.
Host families are in demand. As a host, your role is to offer a homely environment in which international students can learn and grow in confidence. Once a guest contacts you to arrange a homestay, you begin discussing the details. This is also an opportunity to get to know each other. If your guest makes a reservation, they pay a small deposit to Lingoo to secure their booking. You and your guest then complete a contract and the guest makes final payment directly to you at the start of the homestay. You can find out more about how hosting works....
Hosts control when and how long guests stay in their home, how much guests pay, and whether they would like to host children, teenagers, adults or family groups, as well as how many people they can accommodate at any one time. Our secure online messaging service gives hosts complete control over all interaction and agreements with their guests (including financial and activity elements of the stay).....
It’s an opportunity for people of all ages – from children, International students and to adults – to improve their language skills in authentic, everyday situations in the home of a local host. The host provides meals, accommodation, a warm welcome into their family life, and plenty of opportunities to improve language skills. You can even match your hobbies and interests to those of the guest by reviewing their profiles...
We encourage all our hosts to share their interests, lifestyle and even their religion on their profile page. This enables guests to match their interests with yours so you both get the most out of the homestay. These can range from sporting and hobby interests to the food your family enjoys. It’s a simple, inclusive way to involve guests and improve learning. You can find out what kind of interests some of our homestay teachers offer....
Guests need to know they will be staying in a safe and secure environment on a Lingoo language homestay. Since 2007, we have been using a stringent validation process for members; no one can actively use our site without first being validated by a human being. We physically check each member’s profile and members must supply a current identification document and proof of address. For added security, we allow members to create a credentials file (available to members on request). Our hosts are then evaluated by visitors with feedback left on their Lingoo profile.
We also protect your personal information on our secure servers in an encrypted form and our secure messaging system maintains your privacy during communication with other members. Any financial transactions through Lingoo are also safeguarded through enhanced security. Read more about security on Lingoo.
Read what our hosts say about hosting with Lingoo. You can find out how to be a better host, home teaching as a business, and the pros and cons of hosting in general:
What makes a good Lingoo homestay language host?
Deciding the best way of finding homestay guests
Why hosting homestays is so rewarding
Earn Up To £7,500 Tax Free As A Host
The new home business - foreign language exchanges
How A TEFL Qualification can increase homestay language host bookings
Why not read more of these stories on a range of other hosting topics on our blog?
If you have a teaching qualification, you could become a homestay teacher. Teachers provide meals and accommodation alongside formal or informal lessons to help students accelerate their language acquisition. You need to hold a professional qualification to teach your own language to non-native speakers. Read more about becoming a host tutor.
Teachers of English as a foreign language (with relevant ESL or EFL experience and a recognized TEFL Certificate) are in high demand.