“English for the global”: discourses in/of English-language voluntourism

Abstract

Drawing upon the notion of hyperglobalism and critical perspectives on English as an international language, this study examines the ways in which English language teaching via volunteer tourism (i.e. English-language voluntourism) is represented and legitimated as an altruistic practice among organizational sponsors and in the talk of current and former volunteers. Data were collected as a part of a larger, multi-sited ethnography that included interviews with program participants, fieldwork in the office of a sponsoring non-governmental organization, and a content analysis of organizational sponsors’ promotional materials. Data analysis illustrates that English-language voluntourism relies on and recreates a discourse of hyperglobalism in order to construct short-term, volunteer English language teaching as a benevolent and appropriate development intervention. However, English-language voluntourism program participants often come to a new, critical awareness of hyperglobalism and its attendant ideologies by participating in these same programs.

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