Most of us would love to up sticks and head off overseas for an adventure. But with a gap year costing on average £7,700, many travellers have to look for alternative ways to fund their travels. One of the benefits of travelling abroad is gaining the work experience you need to take your career to the next level. But what about finding flexible, well-paid work to support yourself while you travel? That can be a challenge.
With accommodation being one of the biggest travel expenses, many gap year travellers chose to do skill exchanges in return for somewhere to stay. Often meals are included in this arrangement, further reducing travelling expenses.
Becoming a Lingoo language au pair is just one of the routes you can take to lower your costs while you travel. Free accomodation and meals are the fee for your wisdom. But there are many more benefits that go hand-in-hand with becoming a Lingoo language au pair, advantages that we will explore in this blog post.
Teach while you travel
Whether you have ambitions to become a teacher or not, becoming a Lingoo language au pair helps you develop vital skills and enhance the essential qualities you need to be the best in many career roles. By staying in the home of your host family, you will teach your host family English conversation skills part time and can travel the surrounding country in your spare time.
The flexibility of our language au pair positions means you can enjoy the best of both worlds, saving money on your travels through teaching and experiencing the culture of an entirely different country. Doing a skill exchange is an ideal way to make the most of your year abroad, as Tinggly explains:
“The more money you have available, the longer you can go away for, the more you can see and do. It will also mean better choices when it comes to accommodation and food – imagine, a single room in a hostel once in a while! ”
Find work whatever your experience
There are tons of jobs that make it simple for you to earn money on your gap year. Unfortunately, most are very low paid, trading hard graft for a pitiful wage. Becoming a language au pair gives everyone the chance to find work that is flexible and great experience for the CV as well as advantageous for both parties.
By taking on work as a language au pair, you trade your teaching skills, not for a wage but for free accomodation and meals. Two areas that are major but essential expenses for modern day travellers.
You don’t need any formal teaching qualifications to become a Lingoo language au pair. All we ask is that our language au pairs are aged between 18-30, unmarried, without dependents, and have a genuine passion for helping people learn new skills.
Our network is free to join too, meaning you can connect straight away with lots of host families looking for a language au pair to stay with them and teach them English conversation skills.
Learn more than you think
As a language au pair you may think that you’ll be doing all the teaching, but there’s actually a lot for you to learn yourself. In addition to learning the communication, listening, organisational, and teaching skills that always look great on a CV, you can strengthen your own language skills free of charge. As a language au pair, you can use your time with your host family to learn your next language, using immersion techniques to improve skills the natural way.
Thanks to the hospitality of your host family you’ll also learn more about the culture of the country you are staying in. The family you’re staying with may point you in the direction of a lesser known local event or hotspot.
In exchange for their teaching skills, language au pairs are also provided with deliciously authentic home cooked meals as well as a comfortable roof over their heads throughout their stays.
Have an unforgettable trip
By becoming a language au pair through Lingoo, you have the foundation to experience so much more than just a holiday abroad. You can use your gap year or career break to stay in the homes of local people, living the culture of the country you’re staying in as they do.
Recently returned home from your year abroad? Continue your language learning journey with these top tips.
