Homestay provides English language students the opportunity to speak English outside the classroom and the experience of being part of a British home.

    What to Expect

    The host will provide accommodation and meals. Rooms will be cleaned and bedcovers changed at least once a week. You will be given the house key and the host is there to offer help and advice as well as to take an interest in your physical and mental health.

    Accommodation Zones

    Homestays are located in London mainly in Zones 2, 3 and 4 of the transport system. Most hosts do not live in the town center as much of central London is commercial and not residential. Zones 3 and 4 often offer larger accommodation in a less crowded area. It is very convenient to travel in London by underground.

Meal Plans Available

*Continental Breakfast

*Breakfast and Dinner

*Breakfast Packed Lunch and Dinner

    It's important to note that few English families still provide a traditional cooked breakfast. Your accommodation includes Continental Breakfast which normally consists of fruit juice, cereal, bread and tea or coffee. Cheese, fruit and cold meat are not normally part of a Continental Breakfast in England. Dinners usually consist of meat or fish with vegetables followed by dessert, fruit and coffee.

Friends

    If you wish to invite a friend over to visit, you must first ask your host's permission. You have no right to entertain friends in a family home as some families feel it is an invasion(侵犯) of their privacy.

    Self Catering Accommodation in Private Homes

    Accommodation on a room-only basis includes shared kitchen and bathroom facilities (设施) and often a main living room. This kind of accommodation offers an independent lifestyle and is more suitable for the long-stay student. However, it does not provide the same family atmosphere as an ordinary homestay and may not benefit those who need to practice English at home quite as much.

    Mrs Mullen had just got a new heart. She'd waited a year for it, she told me— not that she was complaining. In fact, Mrs Mullen never complain about anything. She just got on with it. Although she was getting over a serious operation, she didn't even like to bother the nurses for a painkiller. She put me, and most of my patients in the hospital, to shame.

    My generation are a generation of complainers. We think the world owes us something. But if the world owes anyone anything, it owes people like Mrs Mullen. She left school at 14, even though she'd won a place at grammar school. She worked in a factory until she retired. She never had a day off sick in her life and never had a holiday — not even when she gave birth to her three children. That's nearly 50 years of hard work. I've never worked as hard as Mrs Mullen, and I'll almost certainly never have to.

    Mrs Mullen recovered well and soon left hospital. It never occurred to me that I'd see her again, so I couldn't believe my eyes when a few weeks later I went to buy a sandwich from the hospital Friends' shop.

    “What are you doing here?” I asked. “You're supposed to be resting.”

    “Oh I am,” she replied. “It's only a few hours a week. I saw the ad for volunteers while I was staying here. It's my way of saying thank you for all that this hospital has done for me.”

    Thank you? Mrs Mullen is the sort of person who gives back more than she takes. I asked for a cheese and tomato sandwich. She handed me egg instead — it was all they had got. I hate egg, but I decided to eat it anyway and not to complain.

    A new report from the International Bar Association (IBA) suggests machines will mostly likely replace humans in a growing number of occupations. One of the authors of the report, Gerlind Wisskirchen, believes that governments need to introduce human quotas（配额）in some sectors in order to protect jobs.

    The report suggests that the jobs at risk are common ones, such as accountants and lawyers. Financial services are more at risk than legal roles though, as algorithms（计算机程序）are easier for a computer to solve when compared to keeping client relationships and making new laws. Simple physical work is also in the firing line, the authors mention.

    As the world population heads toward 7 to 10 billion, futurist Morris Miselowski says, “I am not sure that this nine-to-five, Monday to Friday work as we understand it, will continue for many of us for the next couple of decades.” He forecasts that the biggest changes will be a shift（转变）away from the traditional work time..

“Artificial intelligence (AI)（人工智能）… and all sorts of new technologies are just about to happen; all of that's going to change where, how and when we do work.”

Ms Wissfikirchen was surprised by how far-reaching the effects of automation（自动化）are.

     “Even though automation began 30 years ago in the blue-collar sector, the new development of artificial intelligence and robotics affects not just the blue-collar sector, but the white-collar sector,” said Ms Wisskirchen.

    Toby Walsh, professor of Artificial Intelligence at UNSW, said there was a ray of hope when it came to technology and the future of jobs.

“It's always good to remember that although technology will take jobs away as they raise in this report, there will also be new jobs created by technology,” he said. “In fact if we look at the history of technology since the Industrial Revolution, more jobs have been created than destroyed.”

    For nearly a century before there was such a thing as a space program, a view of space was possible. People could see full views of the Moon, explore Mars(探测火星),and study the outer space beauty. All of this was made possible by a small group of artist-astronomers(天文艺术家) who worked to show people how other worlds in space might look.

    Lucien Rudaux, a French artist, was the first to use his artistic ability and his knowledge of astronomy in art. His paintings show a mixture of skilled observations, brilliant imagination and careful attention. As a result, many of his works have come surprisingly close to actual conditions on distant planets. His painting of Mars included moonlike craters(火山口) that were first photographed by the astronauts in 1965. His 1930 painting of a dust storm looks remarkably like a photograph of a storm taken by the astronauts in 1976.

    The artist-astronomers, including Rudaux, made people interested in outer space by painting what turned out to be exact portraits of the planets.

    I'd like to share a little story with you about something that happened when I was four. I remember it clearly. Our loving family dog was nearing the end of his life. My father picked him up and put him in a little bed we had made for him. Our dog, my companion, whom we had cared for, bit my father when he attempted to help him. How could he? Why? I couldn't understand it. I didn't like him anymore.

    I hadn't thought about that story for a long time but something that happened last week brought it back to me. I went to speak with a friend. When I knocked on the door, I met in an instant an angry look and a few harsh(尖刻的)words. When the door was slammed(砰地关上)in my face, I stood there shocked, and in a rush, I was reminded of my dog bit my father 20 years ago or so. What brought that story back was that same feeling of betrayal.

    Both stories taught me something the next day. You see, when I got up in the morning and was told my dog had died, it became clear to me that he must have been in great pain. For him to have bitten a family member, he could not have been himself. Much the same for the other story when I learned that my friend's wife had just left him.

    We are all beings of our environments, our opinions and feelings. And all of those things can cause you to say and do things that can't be understood by those who are not in the same situation with you.

    If you meet someone either behaving out of character or acting in a way that doesn't seem to fit the situation, put out your hand and be patient when you think it is least possible for him to do so. You may turn around a story that has a sad ending simply by your actions.

    Polish President Andrzej Duda has signed a bill into law that largely limits trade on Sundays, saying it will benefit family life.

    The legislation（立法）, worked out by the government and the Polish trade union, is expected to draw protests from large western supermarket chains that are the main target of the law. A large part of their profit is earned on weekends.

    As of March 1, shops and markets are closed on two Sundays per month; in 2019 only one Sunday a month will be open for shopping; and starting in 2020, there will be no Sunday shopping with a few exceptions.

    Duda praised the law as giving children a chance to be with parents and giving shop workers some needed time off. He also said big traders will need to adjust their practices to the new system and asked them for "understanding". But critics say some of them make employees work long hours for modest pay.

    "A family should be together on Sundays," Olszewska said after buying some food at a local Biedronka, a large discount supermarket chain. She said that before she retired she served cold cuts in a grocery store, and was grateful she never had to work on Sundays.

    There are some exceptions to the ban. For instance, gas stations, cafes, pharmacies and some other businesses are allowed to keep operating on Sundays.

    Anyone breaking the new rules faces a fine of up to 100,000 zlotys （$ 29,500）, while repeat offenders may face a prison sentence. Polish trade union appealed to people to report any violators to the National Labor Inspectorate, a state body.