Abstract
This chapter examines the management, curricula, and potential learning outcomes of a group of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) certificates offered through Groupon’s global e-commerce marketplace. The emergence of private companies marketing online certificates to volunteer tourists reflects the trend of packaged/tailored “experiences” found in mass tourism and can be understood as a response to the academic/public critique of unskilled volunteers and their contribution to communities in need. Using TESOL International Association’s standards as a lens to analyze the claims made by various Groupon TEFL certificate providers, data analysis suggests that these certificate programs serve to (1) commodify language education in the context of volunteer tourism and (2) perpetuate unequal power dynamics between volunteers and the people whom volunteers purportedly help. I argue that volunteer tourism creates a market for online, ultimately ineffective and profit-driven TEFL certificates, and consequently deprofessionalizes the English language teaching profession. This chapter thus highlights the limitations of online certification programs as a way to improve volunteer tourists’ service while contributing to the broader discussion of what professionalization, certification, and commodification mean in relation to TEFL volunteer tourism.
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Notes
- 1.
Certificates go by a variety of different acronyms (e.g., TESL, TESOL).
- 2.
In essence this is a repackaging of the pejorative “backpacker teacher,” typically characterized as an unqualified, White, “native English speaker” from an Inner Circle country who extends their trip in an Expanding Circle country through leveraging their privileged status to gain employment as an English teacher (see Copland et al., 2016; Thornbury, 2001).
- 3.
Whereas this class was taught in England, other pre-service teacher training courses in the 1950s/60s were created in Stockholm for the British Centre and elsewhere through the Centre for British Teachers (Howatt, 1984).
- 4.
A Groupon award based on course popularity/customer satisfaction.
- 5.
Groupon is primarily available in Europe and North American.
- 6.
One of the largest ELT professional associations in the world.
- 7.
Within the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), B2/C1 indicate an intermediate/upper-intermediate English level.
- 8.
A cursory glance of the TEFL certificates offered on Groupon (post-data collection) suggests some have expanded their library to include an online teaching focus with a select few catering specifically to this market segment.
- 9.
Also referred to as the “iron triangle,” this maxim posits that only two can prevail among the triad of cost, time, and quality.
- 10.
The imprecision found in the ELT industry extends to the deceptive marketing of TEFL certificates, which (as evidenced in this study), include overstated instructional hours, claims of “international” recognition and accreditation, as well as the promise that teachers will be equipped with the skills to find comfortable work anywhere in the world.
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Bernstein, J.D. (2023). Becoming “TEFL Certified”: Professionalization, Certification, and Commodification in Teaching English as a Foreign Language Volunteer Tourism. In: Schedel, L.S., Jakubiak, C. (eds) Voluntourism and Language Learning/Teaching. Palgrave Advances in Language and Linguistics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40813-7_3
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