Life and Learning through Study Abroad: Trajectories Connecting Identity and Communicative Repertoires

Individuals imagine belonging to the worlds associated with their additional language (Norton & Pavlenko, 2019) in complex ways. Consequently, additional language learning journeys involve building complementary communicative and identity repertoires through engagement with lived experiences. In this chapter we consider the consequences of communicative challenges faced during study abroad by one Vietnamese EFL teacher who had returned to Vietnam after completing an in-service language teaching program in Australia.¹ We unpack his responses to communicative challenges and how these connect with how he assembled and aligned features within his communicative repertoire as part of building his identity repertoire. In this specific