Interactional competence and its development

Résumé fourni par la source

How do novices develop new skills on the job? Given that a great deal of work is done in social interaction, a more specific question to ask is, how do novices develop communication skills on the job? Considering the context of a global world, how do novices who use English as a lingua franca develop the communication skills to get the job done? This book attempts to address this question by analyzing the development of interactional competence by two Vietnamese hotel staff members as they engage in work-related tasks in English with international guests in Vietnam. In order to understand the nature of this complex and dynamic development, it is imperative that we immerse ourselves in the scene where the action is: the ‘shop floor,’ or more precisely, workplace interaction. To do so, we use ethnomethodological conversation analysis to trace the hotel staff members’ observable changes in interactional practices over time. Beyond a description of these changes, we endeavor to identify the possible impetuses and catalysts that may have led to them. We aim to find out, through an ethnomethodological and conversation analytic lens, answer to the question: What is it about social interaction that makes competence development possible? In doing so, we hope to address three fundamental questions in second language (L2) acquisition research: namely, what is learned, how it is learned, and why it is learned. Let us begin by reviewing how the notions of competence and competence development have been dealt with in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis.

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