Hanh Nguyen.
Hawaiʻi Pacific University Professor of Applied Linguistics Hanh thi Nguyen, Ph.D., co-authored a book, “Developing Interactional Competence at the Workplace: Learning English as a Foreign Language on the Shop Floor,” with Taiane Malabarba, Ph.D., of the University of Potsdam, Germany. Routledge published and released the book in September 2024.
In their research, Nguyen and Malabarba explore the question: What is it about social interaction at the workplace that spurs interactional competence development? According to the publisher, “this book explores the answers to this question by analyzing the development of interactional competence by two Vietnamese hotel staff members, one novice and one experienced, as they interact with international guests in English in Vietnam.”
Nguyen, who previously traced the development of pharmacy students’ communication skills in patient consultations in the U.S., was ready for her next research project, wanting to study how learners of English as a second language develop the ability to communicate with others on the job.
“There are so many second-language users out there getting work done with limited language every day,” Nguyen said. “How do they learn?”
Nguyen collected data in Vietnam, and, knowing that a longitudinal study takes time, she reached out to Malabarba. The two had previously met at a conference and had successfully published a co-edited volume. Nguyen was pleased when Malabarba agreed to collaborate on the new research project.
“Collaborating over Google Docs between Hawaiʻi and Germany has been challenging but also immensely motivating,” Nguyen said. “We’re 12 hours apart, so in the morning the next day, it is fun to see what the other person has written in response to our words.”
Nguyen and Malabarba are on to more co-authored projects, currently writing a journal article and two book chapters based on the same dataset that Nguyen collected in Vietnam.
The data collection and transcription for this longitudinal study was supported by a fund previously administered by HPU, the College of Liberal Arts’ Scholarly Endeavor Program. Immediate open access to the concluding chapter and delayed open access to the entire book are funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities grant to Hawaiʻi Pacific University and the University of Potsdam.
