Areas of Professional Study and Interest: 

Rick Nelson first became interested in language teaching as an LDS missionary in Taiwan. " We used English classes as a missionary tool," he said. "My senior companions didn't want to teach the classes, so they often gave the English-teaching assignments to me." That began a career in language teaching that has lasted almost thirty years.

Nelson received a Bachelor's degree in English from Utah State University and a Master's degree in English as a Second Language from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Before coming to BYU-Hawaii in 1994, Nelson taught for a year in Japan and for fifteen years at Kansai Gaidai Hawaii College in Honolulu.

His interests include all things Asian, especially the languages of China and Japan. In addition to teaching classes, Nelson works as the writing coordinator in the department of English as an International Language. He spends his free time explaining English grammar to clever-but-bewildered students-and to anyone else who cares to listen.