Developing Interactional Competence in a Foreign Language at the Workplace: A Longitudinal Study of Hotel Guest-Relations Officers in Vietnam

Hanh Nguyen

17 May, 2025 - 6:00pm to 8:00pm

How do second language learners improve their language while getting their job done at a workplace? This presentation addresses this question by analyzing a guest-relations officer`s social interaction with international guests at a hotel in Vietnam focusing on her changes and pronunciation of the word massage over 10 months. The findings provide implications for language, teaching and workplace communication skills training.

This will be a hybrid event with the audience in person at our regular venue, and Dr. Nguyen joining us online. If you wish to attend from outside Kitakyushu, please contact us for the online meeting details.

Dr. Hanh Nguyen, Professor of Applied Linguistics, is the author of Developing Interactional Competence at the Workplace: Learning English as a Foreign Language on the Shop Floor (2024, Routledge, co-authored with Malabarba), Developing Interactional Competence: A Conversation Analytic Study of Patient Consultations in Pharmacy (2012, Palgrave-MacMillan). She is the co-editor of Conversation Analytic Perspectives on English Language Learning, Teaching and Testing in Global Contexts( 2019, Multilingual Matters), Talk-in-Interaction: Multilingual Perspectives (2009, University of Hawaii Press) and Pragmatics & Language Learning, Vol. 12 (2010, University of Hawaii Press). Her articles appear in several edited volumes and journals such as Applied Linguistics, Text and Talk, Journal of Pragmatics, The Modern Language Journal, The Canadian Modern Language Review, Language and Education, Classroom Discourse, Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, JALT Journal, and Communication and Medicine.