Become a Foster Family

What is LINGUA SETE?

Lingua Sète is a school for French as a foreign language (FLE) that offers foreign school groups the opportunity to come to Sète for a language immersion program. Students have classes in the morning and activities in the afternoon. Most of the time, they stay with host families so they can experience French culture and learn the language!

First and foremost, to become a LINGUA SETE host family, two essential qualities are required:

• Open-mindedness: Welcoming a foreign student into your home means accepting their differences and adapting to their habits, without disrupting the family’s balance. The goal is to help the student integrate as fully as possible so that they feel just as comfortable with their host family as they do with their own family.
• Availability: Listening to and communicating with the student is essential for their successful integration and understanding of the French way of life. It is through this exchange that the richness of the host experience emerges: the student and each family member have just as much to discover about one another. LINGUA SETE does not impose any criteria regarding age, whether there are children in the home, religion, or anything else; the most important factor is the desire to communicate.

What is the role of the host family?

The host family must welcome the student into their home and share their way of life and culture. Above all, this is a human adventure that allows the student—and the family—to open up to different backgrounds. It helps forge lasting connections in the future. A warm welcome and a friendly atmosphere play a major role in the success of a stay, and this experience should be enjoyable and enriching for both the student and the host family.

What are the requirements for becoming a host family?

• The first requirement is that the family’s native language must be French—since the student’s primary goal is to learn the language.
• The second requirement is to live in Sète and be able to easily get to downtown (on foot or by bus).
• The third requirement is to have housing that can comfortably accommodate one, two, or three students

Quels sont les critères d’accueil du logement ?

Les étudiants sont logés la plupart du temps par deux.

A family wishing to become a host family must therefore have either two available bedrooms or one available bedroom with two separate beds. The bedrooms must be reserved for the students’ personal use.

They must be clean, tidy, and welcoming, and properly furnished with real beds (no mattresses on the floor). They must have four walls and a door (no curtain “doors,” folding screens, blinds, etc.).

La famille d’accueil fournit les draps et les serviettes de bain, changés 1 fois par semaine en cas de long séjour (la plupart des séjours proposés par LINGUA SETE sont des courts séjours donc il n’y aura pas besoin de changement de drap ou de ménage durant le séjour).

The bedroom should not be a place you have to pass through to get to another room in the house. Some students prefer to have their own space in their host family’s home, so we also recruit families with only one bed.

Please note: You cannot sleep on the couch and give your bedroom to the students. The students are free to use the other rooms in the house as they wish: the kitchen, bathroom, living room, etc.

Do I absolutely have to speak English, or the native language of the students I’m hosting?

You must speak only French. The use of any other language should be limited to exceptional circumstances. Encourage them to practice speaking!

Quel type de famille acceptez-vous chez LINGUA SETE ?

Host families can be couples with or without children, single-parent families, or single people.

Quelle est l’indemnité perçue par nuit et par étudiant ?

The compensation is 25 € per student per night. Most of the time, students prefer to share a room, so the compensation will be 50 € per night for two students. It is also possible to accommodate three students, in which case the compensation will be €75 per night. Payment will be made at the end of the stay. All financial transactions with students are handled by Lingua Sète.

Do you have any other questions? Download our guide to becoming a host family!