Our first two guest lecturers, Mike West, and Dr. Andy Fletcher left the ship in Papeete after the first three weeks of the cruise.  Linguist, Dr. Karen Woodman, and Geologist, Dr. Bruce Nocita, joined us in Papeete and have been presenting interesting lectures every sea day since.

I sat down with Karen for a brief chat after one of her Q and A periods.

Karen Woodman

Karen is from Cochrane, a small town in northern Ontario, where she grew up before attending the University of Toronto, majoring in Psychology.  After graduation, she headed off to Greece, where she started teaching English as a second language.  This experience sparked her interest in languages and linguistics, and she continued her graduate education, earning a Master’s degree at St Michael’s College in Vermont.

Moving west to the Pacific Coast, Karen attended the University of Victoria, where she received her PhD in Applied Linguistics.  She continued working in Victoria until moving to Australia in 2000 to help create the University of New England’s online program in Applied Linguistics.

After retiring from the Queensland University of Technology, Karen volunteered to work in Bali, helping several different Hospitality Colleges develop training programs.  These Colleges, such as Mediterranean Bali, are affiliated with cruise lines and hotels and help train students for success in these industries.  You can learn more about Med Bali HERE and look at some training videos they make available to potential cruise ship employees.

One of many issues facing cruise ship crewmembers is understanding what constitutes “good service” for guests of various nationalities.  What may be good for a US national may not be as good for a German citizen.

She started cruising in 2014 as a passenger. She was later able to use her experience teaching Tango Dancing on a cruise from Sydney to Santiago, where she learned more about enrichment speaking.  Karen connected with various cruise lines using agencies such as Cruise Ship Enrichment and Sixth Star.

You can read her bio on Cruise Ship Enrichment’s website HERE

Sixth Star’s website has interesting information about becoming an enrichment speaker and some interesting behind-the-scenes tips and tricks.  More Here.

Below is a list of the lectures Karen has presented to date.  She has about 20 lectures ready to go and much more available with a little tweaking to get them updated.  While she has done both enrichment and destination lectures, Karen prefers enrichment lectures to destination lectures as staying current with all the various destination issues is always more challenging.

• Do Languages Change Over Time?
• Difference Between Spoken & Written Language
• Dos and Taboos
• Kia Ora: Maori Language & New Zealand History
• Language Learning and Technology
• How Ya Going? Australian and New Zealand English

Karen has traveled extensively worldwide and lives in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.  She will be with us thru Sydney, Australia, on February 9th.

BARRY SEACROFT

Barry Seacroft returned to the Mainstage and is now billed as  “MORE SAX ON STAGE”.   Once again, he put on a masterful performance that we enjoyed very much.

Barry Seacroft

We will be in Auckland tommorow.