14.06.2023 - Assoc. Prof. Dr. Cori Jakubiak (Grinnell College, USA): "The Cultural Politics of English-Language Voluntourism"

English-language voluntourism is a practice in which well-meaning, often uncredentialled and inexperienced, often native, English speakers teach English in the Global South on a
short-term basis in the names of economic development and humanitarian assistance. English-language voluntourism programs can be as short as one week, and participants are
generally not required to have educator credentials or prior teaching experience. Although volunteer tourism as a whole has been charged with failing to deliver substantive material change to host communities and exoticizing vulnerable people, critiques of English-language voluntourism, specifically, remain few.

This talk will report on a multi-year, qualitative study that draws upon data collected through a discourse analysis of NGO sponsors’ promotional websites and interviews with in-service and former volunteers. Findings suggest that program sponsors and volunteer participants utilize four different discourses, including “native English immersion as pedagogy,” to justify the merit and purpose of their teaching interventions. However, discrepant data suggest that some former volunteers reject dominant discourses and instead develop critical language awareness (following Alim, 2005) as a consequence of their volunteer teaching experiences.

Cori Jakubiak is Director of the Center for Prairie Studies and associate professor of education at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, USA. Her research examines two kinds of language-based tourism: English-language voluntourism as a form of humanitarian assistance; and Italian language-based tourism as mode of leisure/education, international mobility, and statecraft.