This chapter explores the aff ordances that independent task performance in a foreign language at the workplace may provide for a novice. Using conversation analysis (CA) guided by ethnomethodological (EM) insights about learning and competence development, I longitudinally track the novice’s interaction with guests at a hotel in Vietnam and focus on how the novice modifi ed her interactional practices to accomplish the task of giving instructions about the hotel’s Wi-Fi connection. The analysis shows that repairs of early formulations and how the repair sequences were organized may have triggered the novice to recruit diff erent linguistic materials and employ diff erent turn-design features (such as slowed speech and stretched sounds) in later encounters to better achieve the goal of giving clear instructions. While some linguistic deviations still persisted by the end of the data collection, there is also evidence that the deviations were beginning to destabilize. The fi ndings suggest the value of repairs in lingua franca communication as an impetus for learning and off er practical considerations for teaching English for specifi c purposes (ESP). Further, this study argues for an EM/CA-based conceptualization of competence development. © 2019 Hanh thi Nguyen, Taiane Malabarba and the authors of individual chapters.
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