Teaching English in Volunteer Education Contexts: A Reflective Study from Indonesia

The thesis "Teaching English in Volunteer Education Contexts: A Reflective Study from Indonesia" explores the educational context in Indonesia through the lens of a volunteering experience undertaken at the Jet Centre School of English in Yogyakarta, on the island of Java. The study aims to examine how the teaching methods and strategies can be adopted in a specific cultural context, with particular attention to the development of oral communicative skills of the pupils, especially speaking and pronunciation, and to the introduction of inductive teaching methods. The Indonesian context serves as the background for understanding both opportunities and challenges involved in running English language courses. Although English is widely taught as a foreign language, differences in access to educational resources, regional disparities, and students’ different approaches to using English in everyday life can affect the learning process. The research adopts a qualitative case study approach through the implementation of a structured interview based on five main aspects and conducted with local educators. This approach enables examining the teaching experience from the participants’ perspectives while considering culture-related aspects, including values, opinions, behaviours, and the social context in which the experience took place. The final analysis considers both the strengths and the limitations of volunteering experience, with particular attention to teamwork, cross-cultural awareness, communication and responsiveness to the learners’ needs. It also identifies possible improvements and future perspectives for context-sensitive volunteer language education.