Hosting and teaching a student in your own home will not be as easy as teaching one in a classroom.
When you agree to take a student on a Homestay Experience, it should be an enriching experience for the student, of course, but also a satisfying one for you. You want to know that when your student returns home, they will have benefited from Living English with YOU! Its all about empathy; patience and listening and if you can introduce these very important points into your Homestay programme, then success will be yours!
For a start, they are going to be living with you 24/7 – so you won’t be able to get up at the end of the lesson and disappear. You are going to have to realise that it will or could be as difficult for them as it is for you. It is a very intensive situation because there is “ no escape!”
- Walk a mile in their shoes: When your student arrives they will be feeling quite nervous, even if they are an adult and have quite good English. They don’t know you and apart from a brief skype conversation or some exchange of emails they wont know what to expect. So put them at their ease and ensure they have time to be on their own should they want it. Homestay accommodation doesn’t have to be amazing but it should make them feel at home and this is true for all homestay accommodation. It should be a real “ home from home!”
- Patience: Your student could be very nervous and so this hampers learning. When people are nervous they don’t hear properly and often get flustered. Put them at their ease and make the first lesson very informal. The first meal will be a great “ ice breaker” so use it to be chatty and friendly and not ask deep and difficult questions. This will really help your student progress more quickly. They will want to tell you about their family and their life back in their own country. Ask them to show you some photographs and they will want to speak English and talk about their life.
- Say it again and again and again: It sometimes takes a day or so for your student to tune into your accent. So help them by speaking slowly and clearly to begin with. Also although its an outdated idea to learn by rote there is no better way to learn new words and use them by getting your student to learn 10 new words a day and use them in sentences. Lesson planning will be important, but so will flexibility as well. If you prepare a lesson and they don’t like it, then ensure you can change things as much as possible. It saves wasting time and keeps your student engaged.
- Spend time with them. One of the advantages of English programmes in a Homestay is that some of the leisure time can be used to speak English in a informal way . Family members can take part in excursions; eat with them and just show them around the area. Free time for the student is important, but its also important to include them into your family dynamics, so try to make them feel as if they are one of the family and make that Homestay Experience, a real Family Homestay Experience.
- Think of different ways to teach: Teaching is not just about offering a bed in a Homestay accommodation and teaching them for 3 hours each morning. Its about getting to know your student; being open to things that interest them and arranging lessons around that. A student who feels you love your job and is empathetic to them will surely blossom and learn English more quickly than someone who just roles out the same lessons for all students regardless of their levels and interests . Students will have chosen a homestay programme over the typical Language School scenario in a classroom of other students.
Finally, when all is said and done this is a profession that you have chosen to do so make sure that your student feels that. It’s a great way to pass the time, helping other people to learn English in your own home. Make it fun. Make it informative and at the end of the Homestay Programme you will find that both you and the students have had an amazing time and you will be looking forward to welcoming your next English language student very soon after that.
