Homestay provides English language students with 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 4of 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 crowed area. It is very convenient to travel in London by Underground.

Meal Plans Available

·Continental Breakfast

·Breakfast and Dinner

·Breakfast, Packed 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 desert, 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 of their privacy.

Self-Catering Accommodation in Private Homes

    Accommodation on a room-only basis includes shared kitchen and bathroom facilities 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.

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    Want to stay away from colds? Put on a happy face.

    Compared to unhappy people, those who are cheerful and relaxed are less likely to suffer from cold, according to a new study. It's possible that being happy helps the body fight illnesses, say the researchers from New York University.

    “It seems that positive feelings may reduce the danger of illness,” said the study's chief researcher Sheldon Cohen.

    In an earlier study, Cohen found that people who were cheerful and lively caught coughs and colds less often. People who showed positive feelings were also less likely to tell their doctors that they felt ill.

    In this study, Cohen's study interviewed 193 adults every day for two weeks. During the interviews, the people told researchers about the happy or sad feelings they had that day.

    After the two weeks, the people were given colds by doctors and had to stay alone in a room for six days.

    The result showed that everyone in the study was equally likely to get ill. But for people who said they felt happy during the research period, their illness was less serious and lasted for a shorter time.

    Cohen believes that when people experienced positive feelings, their body may produce a chemical that helps fight illness and disease. So if you are worried about your health, look on the bright side more often.

    The medical world is gradually realizing that the quality of the environment in hospitals may play an important role in helping patients to get better.

    As part of nationwide effort in Britain to bring art out of the museum and into public places, some of the country's best artists have been called in to change older hospitals and to soften the hard edges of modern buildings.

    Of the 2,500 national health service hospitals in Britain, almost 100 now have very valuable collections of present art in passages (走廊), waiting areas and treatment rooms.

    These recent movements first started by one artist, Peter Senior, who set up his studio at a Manchester hospital in northeastern England during the early 1970s. He felt the artist had lost his place in modern society, and that art should be enjoyed by a wider audience. A common hospital waiting room might have as many as 5,000 visitors each week. What a better place to hold regular exhibition of art! Senior held the first exhibition of his own paintings in the outpatients waiting area of the Manchester Royal Hospital in 1975. Believed to be Britain's first hospital artist, Senior was so much in demand that a team of six young art school graduates soon joined him.

    The effect is surprising. Now in the passages and waiting rooms, the visitor experiences a full view of fresh colors, playful images and restful courtyards.

    The quality of the environment may reduce the need for expensive drugs when a patient is recovering from illness. A study has shown that patients who had a view onto garden needed half the number of strong painkillers compared with patients who had no view at all or only a brick wall to look at.

    They say the average person makes 35, 000 decisions a day. Yet in her new book, How Woman Decide, Therese Huston explores a widespread phenomenon that many women fail to notice. "There's a huge double standard when it comes to how men and women are viewed as decision﹣makers," explains Therese, a psychologist from Seattle University. Therese decided to write the book after looking at her bookshelf: At one end, there were bestselling books about how to be a clever decision﹣maker ﹣ all written by men and featuring interviews with men like athletes. At the other end were books aimed at women on gaining leadership skills and confidence.

    "Once those women are at the table, will their decisions be taken as seriously as men's？" Therese wondered. "Men are respected as decision﹣makers more than women, especially in the workplace, largely because there's this cultural belief that women are unable to make smart choices at work. "

    So, Therese set out to pick apart the stereotypes（固有印象）to see what scientific research had found. "Scientific research shows that men and women struggle with decision-making equally. The only disadvantage I found was that during the teenage years-teenage girls are more indecisive than teenage boys. Otherwise, there's little difference between the genders（性别）.

    However, there are some differences. "Women are more collaborative（协作的）, "says Therese. "A female boss is more likely to ask the opinions of those around her when making a choice. Women ask for input, which helps make better decisions. However, this is often seen as a weakness rather than a strength.

    Therese also found that during times of stress, men and women make different choices, and the outcomes are often better when women are involved.

    Study after study backs this view up. Neuroscientists Mara Mather and Nicole Lighthall from the University of Southern California studied the way men and women make decisions and found that in times of stress, they react very differently.

    During their study, which involved playing a virtual gambling（赌博）game, they found that when the females became stressed, they made smart decisions ﹣ quitting while they were ahead or taking safe bets. But when the men became stressed, they did the opposite, risking everything for a slim chance of a big win.

Museum lets visitors walk in the shoes of a police officer

Police shows on TV are filled with high- speed car chases and crimes solved in a few minutes. But that's not a typical day for a real- life police officer. To get a more accurate picture, head to the National Law Enforcement Museum in Washington. Exhibits there invite visitors to use their senses of sight, hearing, touch and smell to gather information the way police do.

Let's look at a few exhibits.

K-9 Units

See a video of how dogs are trained to join K-9 Units. Test your ability to smell and identify various scents(气味). Learn which kinds of dogs are better at tracking bad persons while others are better at sniffing out dangerous goods.

The Web of Law Enforcement

You' ll quickly learn that crime- solving is a team effort, not only within one department, but among organizations across the country. Inspection Service is just one of the law enforcement groups helping local police when needed. For example, six organizations worked together on a national park graffiti(涂鸦) case.

Five Communities

Every community is different. Learn how the needs and challenges of five communities are being dealt with. These communities goals are to develop programs, while increasing trust between local people and police. What might work in your neighborhood? There's a place for visitors to share their thoughts.

The Training Simulator

Those aged 12 and older can try the same training scenarios(方案) and . equipment used in professional law enforcement classes in which police try to resolve difficult situations. Short videos test participants' abilities to observe accurately and think quickly before reacting.

The exercises give an understanding of what officers face on a daily basis.

" Many kids first think it's like a video game," said Alan Davis, an educator and New York police officer." They soon realize that real- life decision- making in a second isn't easy, and they freeze. For real police there are no second chances."