In Oxford, a language stay at your teacher’s home begins with a door opening onto an ordinary house: your room upstairs, a place at the table, and the room where you will have your lesson the next morning. You are the only student. Your English teacher knows your level before you arrive, and corrects you as much during the lesson as while peeling the carrots.
This is the format I offer in Oxford and Oxfordshire: one-to-one lessons, full board at your teacher’s home, and an English city around you. You set the intensity before you leave, from 10 to 30 hours a week, and the rest of the day carries on in English, at the table, in the kitchen and when you go out with your teacher.
Why choose Oxford?
Oxford is a mid-sized city about a hundred kilometres north-west of London, between the Thames and the Cherwell, and you can get around it on foot. Trains reach Paddington in about an hour, but your transfer leaves from Heathrow without going through central London: the journey ends where the stay begins. The centre is compact, bicycles are everywhere, and the time you’d lose travelling anywhere else is time for talking here.
Two rivers run through the city, the meadows begin where the houses end and the Cotswold villages are less than an hour away: enough to go out every afternoon, between the covered market, the second-hand bookshops and the Ashmolean, where entry is free. The city provides the setting; the outings are decided with your teacher. If you are looking for a big city, the stay at a teacher’s home in London takes place somewhere much larger; you’ll find the other regions on our page about a language stay in England.
How your English lessons work in Oxford
The lessons are all one-to-one and you choose the intensity by the week: 10, 15, 20, 25 or 30 hours, with a timetable set with your teacher. The 10-hour option is taken only together with activities or cultural visits, because with so few lessons it is what you do outside that makes the difference.
You sleep in your own room and eat with the family, three meals included, and everything there is said in English. You arrive on Sunday and leave the following Saturday, on any date of the year, with lessons from Monday to Friday. If your flight arrives the day before, we simply add a night. The transfer is arranged to and from Heathrow.
The person who hosts you is the person who teaches you: a qualified teacher, chosen by us, whose home has been inspected. Before you confirm, I send you their profile — who they are, how they live, where the house is — and if something doesn’t suit you, I look for another family. If you already have accommodation in Oxford, the “lessons only” format keeps the same one-to-one hours at your teacher’s home, without accommodation or meals. To enter the United Kingdom you need a passport and, unless you are a British or Irish citizen, the Electronic Travel Authorisation: the page about the ETA explains how to apply.
A day in Oxford
The morning starts with breakfast with the family, then the lesson hours at home, often going back over what you didn’t understand at the table the day before. In the afternoon, it is the second block of lessons or an outing: shopping at the covered market, a walk along the Cherwell, a museum. You speak because you have to ask, pay and understand the answer the first time. In the evening you have dinner together: you make a mistake, your teacher gives you the right word, the conversation carries on. Activities and visits are booked in advance and chosen with your teacher, depending on what is around their home — an afternoon in a Cotswold village, a market, a walk by the water.
How much a stay in Oxford costs
A single figure covers the room, the meals and the one-to-one lessons. The rest is what you add: visits, activities, the transfer from Heathrow, a bathroom to yourself. The flight and what you spend in town aren’t included, and I price the options in the proposal.
A personalized stay according to your goals
Prefer to focus solely on individual lessons? Our "Lessons Only" programmes offer personalized tuition without accommodation at the teacher's home.
Stay at the teacher's home
- Full-board accommodation with daily one-to-one lessons
- Total immersion in the teacher's daily life with cultural activities
- Rates from £880 depending on the chosen programme
*With the 10-hour option, the week also includes General Activities and/or Cultural Visits.
⚠ For a student under 18 staying at the teacher's home, General Activities and/or Cultural Visits go with the lessons.
These are indicative starting prices and may vary.
Who goes to Oxford
In the same house, in different weeks, you find someone with a week’s holiday and someone picking English up again after years. Those who work in English take an intensive week at 25 or 30 hours and bring the vocabulary of their job, before an interview or a series of meetings; those coming back after a long time have no group to keep up with, and with 15 or 20 hours the afternoons are left for the city. Seniors sleep in someone’s home rather than a hotel and decide the timetable with their teacher, and Oxford has the advantage that you can walk everywhere. Those preparing for an exam — Cambridge, IELTS, school-leaving exams — work on the format of the test.
If it is your child who is going, the first thing I send you is the family’s profile, and in the evening it’s the family who ask them how their day went. Up to 18, in the afternoon they go out with their teacher — the covered market, an hour along the Cherwell — because I don’t want them waiting for the next day’s lesson in their room. Up to 16, someone they have already seen in a photo waits for them at Heathrow, unless you drop them off yourself. And if they are under 13, I place them with a family used to younger children, where there is always an adult at home.
Frequently asked questions about a language stay in Oxford
Do I need to speak English already to go to Oxford?
No. The lessons are individual and all levels are accepted, from beginner to advanced: your level is assessed before you leave and the programme starts from there. You don’t have to keep up with anyone.
How long should I stay in Oxford?
One week already gives results if you take 25 or 30 hours and have a precise goal. Two weeks are more comfortable: the first is for daring to speak, the second for settling what you have learned.
Whose home do I live in during the stay?
Your English teacher’s, in Oxford or Oxfordshire, with full board. The person who hosts you is the person who teaches you.
What if I don’t like the family’s profile?
You receive the profile before anything is confirmed: who the teacher is, how their family lives, where the house is. If something doesn’t suit you, nothing is confirmed and I keep looking.
Can I go to Oxford in autumn or winter?
Yes. Stays can be booked all year round, during school holidays and outside them.
Can I take English lessons in Oxford without staying at my teacher’s home?
Yes, with the “lessons only” format: you take the one-to-one lessons with your teacher and arrange your own accommodation.
Can my teenager go to Oxford on their own?
Yes. They are their teacher’s only student and they live with the family. Up to 18 their afternoons are filled, with activities or visits; up to 16 someone collects them at Heathrow, unless you travel with them; and under 13 there is always an adult at home. You know whose home they will sleep in before you say yes.
Going to Oxford
Your dates, your level and what you want to work on are enough for me to start. I look for the right teacher in Oxford or Oxfordshire and send you their profile with a proposal, which you can read in your own time before confirming. The contact page is there whenever you want to see what is possible on your dates.
Further west, the same stay takes place between Bristol and Bath: a port city and a Georgian city, with the Somerset countryside around them.
