About the Experts

H. Douglas Brown
H. Douglas Brown, Ph.D., is Professor of English at San Francisco State University, where he was Director of the American Language Institute. Previously, he taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois. He was the President of TESOL International in 1980-81. Professor Brown has lectured across the United States and internationally. Some of his publications include: Principles of Language Learning and Teaching and Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy, both published by Longman.

Jack C. Richards
Jack C. Richards is a teacher educator and author who has worked in the Asia-Pacific region for more than 30 years. He has held senior academic positions in Hong Kong, Hawaii, New Zealand, and Singapore and also conducted workshops and seminars worldwide. His primary interests are in language teaching methodology, materials design, and teacher education, areas in which he has published many articles and books. He has also authored many widely used classroom texts for second language learners and is the co-author of the Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics.  Jack Richards is the author of the Interchange series.

Allen Ascher
Allen Ascher has been a teacher and teacher-trainer in both China and the United States, as well as an administrator and a publisher. Mr. Ascher specialized in teaching listening and speaking to students at the Beijing Second Foreign Language Institute, to hotel workers at a major international hotel in China, and to Japanese students from Chubu University studying English at Ohio University.  In New York, Mr. Ascher taught students of all language backgrounds and abilities at the City University of New York and trained teachers in the TESOL Certificate Program at the New School. He was also the academic director of the International English Language Institute at Hunter College.  Allen Ascher is co-author of the Top Notch series.

Jeremy Harmer
Jeremy Harmer has taught in Mexico and the United Kingdom and is currently on the faculty for the MA TESOL at the New School University, New York. He has trained teachers and offered seminars all over the world. A writer of both course material and methodology, he is the author of methodology titles including How to Teach Writing (2004); the new, extensively revised second edition of How to Teach English (2007); and the new fourth edition of The Practice of English Language Teaching (2007) – all published by Pearson Education Ltd. He is the General Editor of the Longman “How to’” methodology list.

Diane Pinkley
Diane Pinkley is a highly acclaimed author and educator who has trained teachers all over the world for 25 years. Ms. Pinkley has directed programs at Teacher's College, Columbia University, New York and the institute of North American Studies in Badaloma, Spain. She is the co-author of Backpack, Parade, and Spin.

David Nunan
Dr. David Nunan is an internationally known applied linguist, lecturer, and author, who has taught in Australia, Asia, the U.K., and the U.S.A. Currently the Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Anaheim University, Dr. Nunan is the author and coauthor of numerous professional books and articles as well as several textbooks.

Susan Hillyard
Susan Hillyard is a renowned author and teacher-trainer who has worked in 15 countries teaching classroom and online courses on methodology at such places as the Norwich Institute of Language Education and the MA TESOL Program at the New School University in New York. 

María Victoria Saumell
María Victoria Saumell holds a diploma in the Theory and Methodology of TESOL and has taught in Argentina for the past 20 years. Ms. Saumell is presently the Coordinator of the EFL section at the Instituto San Francisco de Asís, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.