We recommend that you bring some information about yourself, family and home life to help generate and stimulate conversation with your teacher. For example:
Telephone
Please do not use your host family’s telephone without asking. If you do need to use the telephone, you should offer to pay for the cost of the call. If you are calling internationally, you may find it cheaper to buy a ‘pre-paid’ calling card before you leave home. This should allow you to access a free-phone number in the UK to make international calls.
Washing
Your host family will usually do washing once or twice a week. Your host family will ask you at the end of the week if you have clothes that you need to add to the wash. Make sure that you separate any white items from coloured items!
Meal times
Your host family will let you know their meal times. If you are not sure, please ask. Most families will have breakfast between 07:00 - 08:00 so that you are ready to start lessons at 09:00 or 09:30. Lunch will be around 12:30 - 13:30. Dinner is between 18:00 and 20:00, earlier than many Europeans may be used to eating. Most families will go to bed around 23:00.
British food
British food does not have the best international reputation. However we can assure you that British home cooking is better than you expect! Please let us know at the time of your booking of you have any special food likes and dislikes. Your host family will usually ask you again on arrival if there are any foods that you do not like. If your host family do not ask you, please make it clear to them if there are foods that you really cannot eat!
Breakfast
Most people have a simple breakfast such as cereal (cornflakes etc) with milk, toast with jam or marmalade and coffee or tea and fruit juice. Some people may have eggs for breakfast (boiled, scrambled or poached). The traditional English breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausages, black pudding and bread is rarely eaten at home as most people are too conscious about their health to enjoy this!
Lunch
Lunch is often simple for example sandwiches, soup or salads.
Dinner
Dinner will usually be a main course and dessert, followed by coffee or tea. The British diet is quite varied and your meals will be a variety of pasta dishes, meat dishes (pork, beef or lamb), fish, along with salads and vegetables.
Before coming to UK, there are a lot of things you can do to help you make the most of your time in the country.
Listen to British TV and radio stations. This will help you get used to the sound of English. Don't worry if you don't understand everything. The important thing is to hear English. After a short time your brain will start to recognise the sounds of English better. You can download programmes from the BBC.
Watch films in English sometimes with and sometimes without subtitles.
Select some photographs of your family and your town/city which you can bring to UK. Practise talking about them before your course so when you are in UK you can talk about them with your teacher!
Try to read some simple books in English (you might be able to buy reading books specially written for people learning English). You don't need to know or check every word in a dictionary. Try to get a feel for the most important words or expressions in English. If your level of English is already quite good, try reading newspapers or magazines.
Find out a little about British culture and what is happening in Britain at the moment. The BBC is good for this.
Try speaking to yourself in English. Even better, find someone to speak English with! This will give you practice moving your mouth in a speaking English way!