Prof. Alessandro Benati is the Director of CAES at the University of Hong Kong. He has previously worked in the United Kingdom and UAE. He has published ground-breaking research on the pedagogical framework called Processing Instruction and he is internationally known for his research in second language acquisition. Alessandro has coordinated high-impact research projects funded by the EU, Leverhulme Trust, British Academy and other research bodies. He is co-editor of a new series for Cambridge University Press called Elements in Second Language Acquisition, a member of the AHRC Peer Review College and the REF Panel 2021 in the UK. Alessandro is a leader of an interdisciplinary cluster in language sciences called Emerging Technologies in Language Sciences’, he has published monographs and articles in high-ranked journals, and supervised over thirty PhDs in this field.

Professor Anne Burns was Professor of TESOL, and now holds an Honorary Professorship, at the School of Education at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. She is also a Professor Emerita at Aston University, UK and Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney and The Education University, Hong Kong. She has had Visiting Professorships at the University of Stockholm, Sweden, Thammasat University, Thailand, the Hong Kong Institute of Language Education, UNITEC New Zealand, Soka University and Kanda University of International Studies, Japan.

She has published extensively on language teacher education and the teaching of speaking, and is particularly well known for her work on action research. Her books Collaborative action research for English Language Teachers (CUP, 1999) and Doing Action Research for English Language Teaching: A Guide for Practitioners (Routledge, 2010) have been widely used in language teaching education programs internationally. She is also an Academic Adviser to the flagship Applied Linguistics Series, published by Oxford University Press, and is a Series Editor for the Research and Resources Series published by Routledge. In 2017, she was recognised by TESOL International as one of the ‘50@50’ who have made an outstanding contribution to ELT. In 2019, she was listed on Wikipedia: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Burns_(linguist)

Dr. Bertha Du-Babcock is Visiting Professor of Business and Professional Communication at Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages. Prior to joining the University, she taught at the City University of Hong Kong. Her research is directed towards theory development and teaching innovations in intercultural business communication. She has authored or co-authored 46 journal articles, 6 books, 12 book chapters, and 37 international refereed conference proceedings. She is co-author of the Asian Edition of Essentials of Business Communication and co-edited a special issue on Business and Professional Communication in Asia for the Journal of Business and Technical Communication.

Du-Babcock served as President of the Association for Business Communication in 2015-16, as well as board member and the vice president of the Asia-Pacific. She received nine international awards. Currently, she serves as an Associate editor for The International Journal of Business Communication, and is on editorial boards of eight international journals.

Michael Byram studied languages at King’s College Cambridge, wrote a PhD in Danish literature, and then taught French and German in secondary and adult education. He was at Durham University from 1980 and is now Professor Emeritus. He has trained teachers and researched linguistic minorities and foreign language education. In the 2000s he was Adviser to the Language Policy Division of the Council of Europe, and was recently involved in the CoE’s work on Competences for Democratic Culture. His 1997 book Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence has been revisited and published in 2021. He is now Guest Research Professor at the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, and is leading a project with Maria Stoicheva on the assessment of the PhD, after editing together The Doctorate as Experience in Europe and Beyond in 2019.