Joining the Lingoo homestay host program involves no long-term commitments. It’s entirely flexible and allows you to earn extra money, experience new cultures and make new friends from around the world by offering homestay to international foreign students in your home. Joining is free of charge and subject to validation.
You can decide to host children, teenagers or adult students. You may decide to become a homestay family for summer students only, but you can also work the whole year around if you wish. Watch our video presentation or download a brochure to read later.
Providing foreign student homestay, your role as a host, is to provide a warm welcome, accommodation and meals, help students guests practice their English language, and experience your culture through everyday home life.
Children and adults
Lingoo is open to all types of homestay host families. From the traditional two adults and one or more children, to one-parent families, young couples, retired couples and people living alone.
To join our homestay program for international students you must be able to provide:
• A welcoming family atmosphere to international young people or adults.
• Offer students their own room and home-cooked meals
• Help students build confidence in their English language skills (if you are a qualified language teacher, please click here ).
• Help to students to organise a local English language course, if requested
• Interesting and stimulating activities, from hobbies and sports to fun day trips.
Read more in our FAQ section.
Homestay hosts are always in demand, all year round. Your role is to offer a homely environment where students can improve their English and grow in confidence. Once a student gets in touch to arrange a homestay, you begin discussing the details. This is the moment to get to know each other. When your student makes a reservation, they pay a small deposit to Lingoo and this secures their booking. You and your student then complete a contract and the guest makes final payment directly to you at the start of the homestay.
Hosts control when and how long guests stay during the homestay, how much guests pay, and whether they would like to host children, teenage or adult students 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 student guests (including financial and activity elements of the stay).
Homestay students 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 homestay 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.
If you have a teaching qualification you could become a homestay teacher. Teachers of English provide meals and accommodation alongside formal or informal lessons to help students accelerate their language learning. You need to hold a professional qualification to teach your own language to non-native speakers. Read more about becoming a homestay teacher.
Teachers of English as a foreign language (with relevant ESL or EFL experience and a recognized TEFL Certificate) are in high demand.