Nicola on Fulbright in Arizona

I had the great pleasure of a friend visiting from home recently. Jane and I did our honours degrees in linguistics at Victoria University of Wellington way back in 1989, and have maintained a firm friendship ever since, often going on adventures together, like tramping and canoeing. This time we drove to the Grand Canyon, on the way stopping to see Biosphere 2, now owned by the University of Arizona.   Much of the adventure of the 6 hour drive there and back was me driving on the right hand side for the first time! But all was good with Jane beside me, navigating and reminding me to keep on the right as I turned corners. The tour of the Biosphere was fascinating, learning about the group of people who were sealed in there for two years, and the many experiments being conducted there since, some of which are in partnership with NASA, looking at how food could be grown on Mars, for example. We arrived at the Canyon just after sunset, seeing some elk grazing and crossing the roa...

One of the highlights of my Fulbright has been the people I’ve met, and the opportunities to present in a variety of settings. I recently attended the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia to present a workshop about bilingual picturebooks as part of the JoLLE (Journal of Language and Literacy Education) Winter conference.  I focused on Māori-English bilingual picturebooks and the participants engaged well. My host while there was Dr. Petros Panaou who took this photo in which I look like I’m talking to Captain Cook as I gave a short history of Aotearoa New Zealand  prior to looking at the picturebooks.   The next day I had the great pleasure of attending a plenary given by Dr. April Baker-Bell (Michigan State University) talking about her framework of an Anti-Racist Black Language Pedagogy. It was inspiring. On the Sunday I was leaving from Atlanta, and Petros and his family took me to do some sightseeing before I left. We visited the National Park dedica...