Michael McCarthy is Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics, University of Nottingham, UK, and Honorary Professor of Applied Linguistics, University of Valencia, Spain. He has (co-)authored and edited 60 books and was co-founder (with Ronald Carter) of the CANCODE spoken English corpus. He has lectured in 46 countries and has been involved in language teaching and applied linguistics for 57 years.

Steve Walsh is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Communication, School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University, UK. He is also a visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong. He has published 10 books and more than 100 research papers. He has been involved in English Language Teaching and English language teacher education for more than 30 years in a range of overseas contexts.