Harnessing Storytelling as a Sociopragmatic Skill: Applying Narrative Research to Workplace English Courses

Narratives are often overlooked in workplace talk, but they contribute in crucial ways to relationship building and identity construction in workplace interaction. In this article we analyse narratives told by skilled migrants from non‐English‐speaking backgrounds during a workplace internship conducted as part of a Workplace Communication course. The analysis adopts a social constructionist stance recognising that narratives are co‐constructed between interactants in ongoing interaction. Although earlier TESOL research has made use of narratives as a source of information for designing teaching programmes and for improving specific linguistic features of fluency, this article demonstrates that narratives also provide (ESOL) teachers with an opportunity to empower students in their efforts to negotiate high‐stakes environments such as workplace settings.