Despite increasing scholarly work on Advanced Academic Literacies (AAL) focussing on course curricula and genre materials, there has been little exploration of the classroom and personal relationships which are daily enacted in pursuit of the global and local aspirations of international research students. In this paper, I present aspects of my lived experience as a teacher of research English as an Additional Language (REAL) by telling a reflexive story of developing a critical pedagogy which privileges "connection" within an Australian AAL context. Prioritising interpersonal relationships over curriculum and content material requires a reassessment of the classroom as a teaching space, as well as of the roles of teachers and students. As this narrative indicates, it is my belief that such a pedagogy not only enhances students' interrogation, and consequent manipulation, of the linguistic structures in which they have investment, but it also goes some way to fulfilling our hopes for AAL teaching as a site for transcultural dialogues and outreaches beyond language education. (Contains 1 figure.)