Cover not available
Article published In:
Language, Culture and Society
Vol. 1:2 (2019) ► pp.219–243

English language assistants in the 21st century

Nation-state soft power in the experience economy

| Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
| Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Although the figure of the English language assistant (ELA) dates back a long while, its current popularity is unprecedented in some areas of the world. Such is the case of Spain, where the goal of raising English standards among the younger generations has become a national obsession. Using critical ethnographic methods, this paper examines the experience of three British LAs placed in secondary schools in Barcelona. It draws on a focused case study of one of them – combined with ethnographic snapshots of the other two, interviews with school teachers and regional programme administrators, relevant programme publications, and social media data. The analysis reveals three major tensions shaping the ELA experience in the 21st century revolving around: (a) the underspecified and unskilled nature of the job; (b) its culturalist imagination and state diplomacy mission; and (c) the native speaker ideology constituting its raison d’être. This paper provides new insights into the intertwining of the ELT infrastructure with global travel and tourism capitalised as skill boosters for employability purposes, and showcases the importance of foreign language education as a soft power tool.

Keywords: language assistantship, soft power, language industries, ELT, native speakerism, working tourists
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The English language assistantship programme: A historical perspective
  • 3.Researching ELAs: Existing studies and framing ideas
  • 4.Data and research procedures
  • 5.Tensions currently constituting the ELA figure
    • 5.1Tension 1: Programme requirements vs school expectations
    • 5.2Tension 2: ELAs as country/culture representatives or individuals with particular histories?
    • 5.3Tension 3: The nativeness of ELAs: valued or challenged?
  • 6.Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 22 October 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lcs.00017.cod
References
Billig, M.
(1995) Banal nationalism. London: Sage.Google Scholar
British Council
(2015) Notes for English language assistants appointed to Spain in 2014–2015. Available from: [URL]
(2018a) British language assistants programme Spain 2018/19. Spain country notes. Available from: [URL]
(2018b) English language assistants application – Guidance 2018/19. Available from: [URL]. Retrieved 14/09/2018>
Brown, P., Hesketh, A. & Williams, S.
(2004) The mismanagement of talent: Employability and jobs in the knowledge economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Byram, M. & Alred, G.
(1993) ‘Paid to be English’ A Book for English Assistants and Their Advisers in France. Durham: School of Education.Google Scholar
Bunnell, T.
(2016) Teachers in international schools: a global educational “precariat”? Globalisation, Societies and Education, 14(4), 543–559. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chaloner, J., Evans, A. & Pragnell, M.
(2015) Supporting the British economy through teaching English as a foreign language. London: English UK. Available from: [URL]
Codó, E.
(2017) English language models in two plurilingual school programmes: Democratising access or creating new hierarchies. Paper presented at the 41st International AEDEAN Conference. Universidad de La Laguna, 8-10 November 2017.
(2018) The intersection of global mobility, lifestyle and ELT work: A critical examination of language instructors’ trajectories. Journal of Language and Intercultural Communication 18(4), Special issue “Language, Mobility and Work”, M. Moyer (Ed.).Google Scholar
Codó, E., & Patiño-Santos, A.
(2018) CLIL, unequal working conditions and neoliberal subjectivities in a state secondary school. Language Policy, 17(4), 479–499. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coleman, J.
(1997) Residence abroad within language study. Language Teaching 301, 1–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2013) Researching whole people and whole lives. In C. Kinginger (Ed.), Social and cultural aspects of language learning in study abroad (pp. 17–44). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Corbella, J.
(2017) Pongan profesores de inglés nativos en parvulario y primaria. La Vanguardia 5 June 2017.Google Scholar
Coulmas, F.
(2018) An introduction to multilingualism: Language in a changing world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cummins, A.
(1998) Skill, service or industry? The organisation of settlement programs for adults learning English in Canada and Australia. Prospect, 13(3), 36–41.Google Scholar
Dafouz, E., & Hibler, A.
(2013) “Zip your lips” or “keep quiet”: Main teachers and language assistants’ classroom discourse in CLIL settings. The Modern Language Journal, 97(3), 655–669. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Del Percio, A.
(2016) Nation branding and the politics of difference. Signs and Society, 4(1), 1–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Departament d’Ensenyament de la Generalitat de Catalunya
(2017) Guía del auxiliar de conversación en Catalunya. Curso 2017–2018. Available from: [URL]
Duncan, T.
(2007) Working tourists: Identity formation in a leisure space. London: University College London.Google Scholar
Duchêne, A.
(2011) Néolibéralisme, inégalités sociales et plurilinguisme: L’exploitation des ressources langagières et des locuteurs. Langage et Société, 1361, 81–108. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ehrenreich, S.
(2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational and professional significance in teachers’ biographies. In M. Byram & A. Feng (Eds.), Living and studying abroad: Research and practice (pp. 186–209). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2007) Living and teaching in intercultural spaces: A close(r) look at the impact of assistant experience on prospective foreign language teachers. In A. Pearson-Evans & A. Leahy (Eds.), Intercultural spaces: Language, culture, identity (pp. 9–20). Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Goulding, D.
(2016) “English Teacher: Any Tom, Dick or Harriet will do”: Power, discourse and identity in English language teaching. In B. Kürsteiner, L. Bleichenbacher, R. Frehner, & A.-M. Kolde (Eds.), Teacher education in the 21st century: A focus on convergence (pp. 110–136). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Harvey, D.
(2005) A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Heller, M., Pietikäinen, S., & Pujolar, J.
(2018) Critical sociolinguistic research methods: Studying language issues that matter. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Holliday, A.
(1999) Small cultures. Applied Linguistics, 20(2), 237–264. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jakubiak, C.
(2016) Mobility for all through English- language voluntourism. In J. Rickly, K. Hannam, & M. Mostafanezhad (Eds.), Tourism and leisure mobilities: Politics, work, and play (pp. 193–207). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lee, G.
(2009) A theory of soft power and Korea’s soft power strategy. Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, 21(2), 205–218. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McLelland, N.
(2018) The history of language learning and teaching in Britain. The Language Learning Journal, 461, 6–16. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Méndez García, M. del C., & Pavón Vázquez, V.
(2012) Investigating the coexistence of the mother tongue and the foreign language through teacher collaboration in CLIL contexts: Perceptions and practice of the teachers involved in the plurilingual programme in Andalusia. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 15(5), 573–592. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte
(2017) Guía del auxiliar. Programa de auxiliares de conversación en España 2017/18. Madrid: Secretaría General Técnica, Subdirección General de Documentación y Publicaciones. Available from: [URL]
Nye, J.
(2004) Soft power and American foreign policy. Political Science Quarterly, 119(2), 255–270. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pennycook, A.
(2001) Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pine II, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H.
(1998 [2011]) The experience economy. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.Google Scholar
Relaño-Pastor, A. M., & Fernández-Barrera, A.
(2019) Resignifying English in La Mancha bilingual schools: Eliteness and the native self. Special issue “Elite Multilingualism”, Barakos, E. & Selleck, C. (Eds.) Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rowles, D. & Rowles, V.
(Eds.) (2005) Breaking the barriers: 100 years of the language assistants programme 1905–2005. London: British Council, Department for Education and Skills.Google Scholar
Stainton, H.
(2018) TEFL tourism: The tourist who teaches. Tourism Geographies, 20(1), 127–143. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stanley, P.
(2016) Economy class? Lived experiences and career trajectories of private-sector English-language-school teacher in Australia. In P. Haworth & C. Craig (Eds.), The career trajectories of English language teachers (pp. 185–199). Oxford: Symposium Books.Google Scholar
Subdirección General de Cooperación Internacional y Promoción Exterior Educativa
(2017) Las funciones del auxiliar de conversación [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from [URL]
Thornbury, S.
(2001) The unbearable lightness of EFL. ELT Journal, 55(4), 391–396.Google Scholar
Tupas, R., & Rubdy, R.
(2015) Unequal Englishes: The politics of English today. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Urry, J.
(2010) Excess, fascination and climates. In H. Schmid, W.-D. Sahr, & J. Urry (Eds.), Cities and fascination: Beyond the surplus of meaning (pp. 209–224). Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Wörsching, M.
(2012) Foreign language assistants in schools: making sure of the future. In J. Sayer & L. Erler (Eds.), Schools for the future Europe – Values and change beyond Lisbon (pp. 117–134). London: Continuum. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 7 other publications

Codó, Eva
2022. The dilemmas of experimental CLIL in Catalonia. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 43:4 ► pp. 341 ff. DOI logo
Jakubiak, Cori & Larissa Semiramis Schedel
2023. Introducing Language-Motivated Voluntourism. In Voluntourism and Language Learning/Teaching [Palgrave Advances in Language and Linguistics, ], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
McDaid, Jessica & Andrea Sunyol
2023. “Gaps,” Workers with No Schedule: The Making of Casual Workers in Two Northern Irish Boarding Schools. In Voluntourism and Language Learning/Teaching [Palgrave Advances in Language and Linguistics, ], ► pp. 243 ff. DOI logo
Nic Craith, Mairéad, Philip McDermott & Nicola Bermingham
2023. Global Englishes: Dialogue and Communication in the Workplace. In Intercultural Issues in the Workplace, ► pp. 163 ff. DOI logo
Ordóñez Dios, Alfonso Francisco & Beatriz Polo Recuero
2020. Teacher perceptions on the role of language assistants in bilingual physical education. Pulso. Revista de educación :43 ► pp. 75 ff. DOI logo
Relaño Pastor, Ana María & David Poveda
2020. Native speakerism and the construction of CLIL competence in teaching partnerships: reshaping participation frameworks in the bilingual classroom. Language and Education 34:5 ► pp. 469 ff. DOI logo
Tolosa, Constanza, Diego Navarro & Ben Egerton
2023. Local intercultural language assistants in New Zealand classrooms. Language, Culture and Curriculum 36:4 ► pp. 439 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 may 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.