Providing paid stay holidays, or homestay, to foreign students can be a highly flexible and satisfying way to make a living or supplementary income. But one of the most important considerations at the start can be who you want to work for. There are many agencies on the market. The ideal choice depends upon what suits you. If you work for an agency affiliated to a language school, the school does all the teaching while you, as homestay provider, offer only bed and board. At the other end of the scale, some online agencies offer you complete control. You choose the people who stay in your home, what services you provide – from sightseeing to English lessons – and you even set your own prices.
Working with the former means almost all of the planning for your guest’s stay, from transport to activities, is managed by the language school. The latter, although requiring you to manage the stay, offers more flexibility and control. For those who already provide homestays, both flexibility and fee structures are key considerations when deciding which to choose. Essex couple Kerry and Camelia Flitter have been providing homestays since 2001. After applying to an agency ad in a window they began hosting French students during school holidays. “We had a local liaison person, which was good. But the students left the house for lessons and returned after five o’clock. It was less intensive than the way we do it now and we didn’t really get to know the children staying with us,” he says. For the last two years, Kerry and Camelia have been working with Lingoo.com, a web-based company that helps to arrange language exchange and paid stay holidays for children and teenagers. Kerry says, “We like the way Lingoo do it. At first, there seemed to be a lot of emails for each child who came to visit but once that is all done it becomes routine and we see the reason for it now.”
For Midlands couple Pauline Finlay and Neil de Reybekill, deciding who to work with has a lot to do with their own ethos. They began hosting and teaching students in their home, through an agency, in 2010. Pauline says, “The agency we worked for initially and some of the stories we’ve heard about other organisations suggest that they are very profit-motivated. We want to work with an organisation that really cares about the children having a positive experience and making sure that they are well looked after.” Ethos, flexibility, and the option of selecting guests carefully were key reasons why they began looking at alternatives. Pauline says, “The great advantage of Lingoo is being able to find out in advance quite a bit about the family and being able to communicate directly with them. Sometimes, the exchange of messages can be quite long, which makes sure that key questions can be addressed from both sides and a relationship of sorts can be established in advance.”
Retired journalist Chris Williamson and his wife Vicky, a schoolteacher, have been providing immersive language-learning opportunities to children since 2001. Chris says, “With Lingoo, we set the rates. Nobody takes a disproportionate cut. We don’t work with large agencies. Some require highly-detailed reports to meet the demands of their accreditation. This is much more in our control.” So it is definitely worth considering all options before deciding the best way to find homestay guests.
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