Organise a paid language homestay for your child
You can arrange a stay for your child with a Host Family for a unique opportunity to improve their language skills. This is a paid stay arrangement where a local host provides meals, accommodation, a warm welcome into their family life and plenty of opportunities to practise the language in authentic, everyday situations. You can find out more about staying with a Host Family here and about staying in the home of a Teacher here .
Use the search tool to select your target language and select “homestay with a Host Family”. Next, narrow down your search by selecting the criteria most important to you through the search filter options.
Your search results appear with the most recently updated profiles at the top. Click ‘View this profile’ to see the Host Family’s profile in detail.
If you are logged on as a Parent Member, you can now either contact Host Family Members or save their profiles in ‘My selection’ to contact them later. To save the profile to ‘My selection’, click ‘Add to selection’.
You can set up an alert to receive notification when a new profile matching your criteria goes live.
Read the details of each profile (particularly any evaluations from previous stays) and when you find a profile you like, contact the member to discuss the stay. Take this opportunity to not just check their availability but also get to know them and agree all the details of the stay. Ask Host Families to share their Credentials file (to find out more about Credentials files, click here).
For your own security, Lingoo advises strongly that all communication should remain within the Lingoo secure messaging system at all times.
When all aspects of the stay have been discussed and agreed with the Host Family Member, start a reservation by clicking ‘Confirm a stay’.
An online Paid Language Stay Contract is initiated by the guest and completed by both parties. This important document outlines all the details of the stay that you and your host have agreed.
Please do not confirm any travel arrangements until the contract is signed.
The contract sets out the terms of the homestay and the commitments made by each member to the other. It is completed (or modified) online alternately by the two members until they have reached an accord. It includes a list of commitments made by each of the members and provides security for the homestay.
The contract is a safety tool that increases the security of the homestay and the clarity of the transaction. Read more about the Paid Language Stay Contract.
Once the contract is agreed, you now buy a booking voucher to confirm your reservation.
The booking voucher equals 15% (for Full members), 17.5% (for Verified members) and 20% (for Free members) of the price of half or full-board, and language lessons included automatically for Teachers’ stays. This reservation fee is subject to UK VAT, depending on where you live. At the moment of payment for the stay, the Host will discount the agreed price by 15% (net). The difference of 2.5% for Verified members and 5% for Free members (plus VAT if applicable) is at the Guest’s expense.
Hosts with at least one evaluation on their profile can also request a small, supplementary deposit to secure your stay with them.
Yes, after the contract is signed, you will receive a PDF of the contract and the record of messages between both parties on Lingoo’s secure messaging system. If, for any reason, you need to cancel your booking, please see Lingoo’s Cancellation Policy.
Pay the balance of the total cost directly to your Host Family. The date(s) of payment and bank details are indicated in the contract.
Shortly after the stay is completed, we will ask you to leave an evaluation of your experience. Please provide this important feedback as it helps us improve our service. Your evaluation will be published on the Host Family’s profile.
This is highly risky and prohibited by the membership rules. Lingoo provides a number of safeguards to both the host and the guest when booking through our secure system. Your deposit, for example, is held securely so that if you need to cancel your trip for any reason you could be entitled to a refund. You can read Lingoo’s cancellation policy here.
We also protect your confidentiality through our secure messaging system, carry out stringent identity validation and provide a completed contract containing all details of the agreement for each reservation. This contract can be used to prove the stay took place for insurance purposes and is highly important for under-age children or non-EU citizens who may need to present this document to pass through border controls. Members who reserve a stay outside the Lingoo system will be systematically removed from the site.
