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. (Contains 1 note.)