Xilfee News Feed

Bob, Viv and their two children live right on the south coast, looking out to sea! They’ve been hosting and teaching EFL students for 5 years now and really love it. They live in the heart of the historic “1066 country” with beautiful scenery and wonderful places to visit. If you are looking for your own tailored teaching programme, you enjoy good food, plenty of company and lively conversation; this may be the family teaching homestay for you.

Vivs Profile & Contact Details

How long have you been teaching English as a foreign language?
I’ve been teaching English for nearly six years now. I have my own “homestay” business teaching 1:1 students and small groups of up to 5 students at a time. I specialise in teaching international business clients but also enjoy teaching students of all ages. As well as teaching at home run my own language school here in Hastings.

What types of students do you most like teaching?
I enjoy teaching students who are motivated to learn, irrespective of age or level.

Tell Xilfee about you and your family
I’m from Colchester, England’s oldest recorded town, and Bob is from the West Coast of Scotland. He is a senior IT Manager in a London bank. Our son, Callum, (aged 11 years) and our daughter, Becca (aged 9) are both bright, active children. We all love to keep busy, whether it’s sport, day trips out or visits to see friends. Our house is a very busy one – we have lots of visitors and love entertaining.

Hosting students is something we have done for years now. We love meeting new people and having find having foreign guests very rewarding. Bob and I like to share the cooking, and another important role Bob fulfils within the business is acting as “entertainment manager”, accompanying our adult guests on visits to the pub to try out the local beers!

What do you like about Xilfee?
They are an open and friendly business, and professional in their approach. I like the fact that I have a single point of contact in the company and I know exactly who I’m talking to.

Do you speak any languages in addition to English?
I have a smattering of French & my husband, Bob, speaks a little French, German, Hebrew and Scottish.

Describe the accommodation you offer
We live in a beautiful, 5 bedroom, semi-detached Victorian house overlooking the English Channel. The house is situated in a “Conservation Area” in West St Leonards, and we have beautiful uninterrupted views of the sea.

There are two spacious double guest rooms on the top floor. Both rooms are painted white with stripped pine wooden floors, and a newly installed en-suite bathroom adjoins the two rooms. The front room has a sea view and the back room looks out over our landscaped garden. We also have a cliff top garden at the front of the house with a bench from which to enjoy the sea view.

Our large, kitchen diner is a busy place and the heart of our home. There we spend social hours during the day and we eat together as a family here, or sometimes on the patio during the summer months. Dinner time is our favourite meal when we all get a chance to catch up with each other’s news for the day.

Where in England are you?
We are right on the south coast, next to Hastings. We are 1.5 hours by train from London and 1 hour from Brighton.

Tell Xilfee about your local area
St Leonards-on-Sea is an attractive Victorian town situated next to Hastings on the south coast. There’s plenty to do here – you can walk along the promenade on the seafront and stop in a café to watch the boats and wind surfers. You can visit our wonderful museums and art galleries, or browse round our new shopping centre.

Alternatively you can take a stroll through the mediaeval streets of the Old Town with it’s little footpaths and ancient architecture, and have a coffee in one of the many cafes in the heart of the Old Town. From there you can take the funicular up to the Country Park and walk along the cliffs and through woodland for miles.

For evening entertainment there’s plenty to do as well. We have two cinemas, three theatres and some great cafes, restaurants and traditional pubs. On the other hand, of course, you are more than welcome to spend your evenings with us at home!

Hastings is an exciting town for younger students, too. In your free time there is plenty for you to enjoy:

• Adventure golf
• The beach
• Ten pin bowling
• A leisure pool
• A sports centre
• An excellent shopping centre

There is plenty to see in the surrounding area, too as we are in the heart of “1066 Country”.

What are your interests and hobbies, individually and as a family?
We spend our leisure time together as a family where possible and we love sport (badminton, swimming, in-line skating, cycling). We also enjoy walks in the country, reading, gardening, cooking & enjoying good food. Our social life is a lively one, and we encourage our students to spend their leisure time with us and with any friends who visit. We love good food and enjoy cooking.

Do you have any amusing, nice or interesting stories about students?
A couple of years back we had a young French “rescue student” passed to us through an agency after a disastrous family stay elsewhere. She was very nervous and upset when she first arrived, but relaxed visibly as the day went on. She stayed for the allotted week, and came back again the following year. Her sister has since requested lessons here, too, and her parents have been to visit so we have now met the entire family!

In fact we have quite a number of families who come to stay with us regularly, some for lessons, and some just for a holiday, and one of them is a French family who have visited us twice now. They first came at the end of October, and their two children brought Halloween costumes in the wistful hope they might have a chance to wear them. What they didn’t realise until they arrived is that my birthday falls on Halloween. Because of this we really celebrate by dressing up, going “trick or treating” and finishing with a big party at a friend’s house with lots of other friends and their children! They’ve already booked to stay for the next one!

What would you cook as a favourite ‘dish’ for a special occasion?
We take turns in cooking, and although we have our own personal favourites, the choice would depend on our guest’s preference. We might cook locally caught fish such as lemon sole or halibut, and serve it with braised fennel, sea samphire, steamed baby vegetables and minted new potatoes. For dessert we might offer a choice of lemon meringue pie with berries and fresh cream, or chocolate mousse tart with raspberries and a fruit coulis.

Apart from the UK! Where is your favourite place in the world & why?
Our current favourite holiday destination is, without a doubt, southern France, because we love swimming and snorkelling in those clear Mediterranean waters, we love the sunshine and the architecture and we enjoy meeting new people and practising our French on them! We adore eating out in the cafes and restaurants, always coming home bursting to try new dishes out at home!

What are your favourite sayings and why?
“Practice makes perfect” for obvious reasons, being a teacher!

“The glass is always half full, not half empty” – always, always take a positive stance.

“A stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet” – we have met and kept in touch with so many wonderful people through this business.

As a family, what things make you laugh?
Clever wit, the absurd, each other!

What would you like to do as a family but never had the money, the time or the courage?
Live abroad. We would love to live in either France or Spain, but the children are very happy and settled at school at present and this would not be a good time to uproot them. Bob and I both have extensive families here in Britain and such a great network of friends it would be a wrench to leave them all. Maybe in the future…who knows?!

Vivs Profile & Contact Details