Bernard Spolsky Bernard Spolsky was born in New Zealand in 1932 and educated at Wellington College, Victoria University College of the University of New Zealand, and the University of Montreal. He taught at high schools in New Zealand, Australia and England. He taught English for two years at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and completed military service in the Israel Defense Forces. He was assistant professor of Education at McGill University (1962-4), and assistant professor of Linguistics at Indiana University (1964-8). At the University of New Mexico from 1968-1980, he was Professor of Linguistics, Elementary Education and Anthropology and for six years Dean of the Graduate School. He was appointed Professor of English at Bar-Ilan University in 1980, serving as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities from 1992-4 and Chair of the Department of English from 1995-6. On retirement in 2000, he was appointed Professor Emeritus.

At Indiana University, he was director of the English as a Foreign Language Program and associate chair of the Research Center for the Language Sciences. At the University of New Mexico, he directed the Navajo Reading Study. At Bar-Ilan University, he founded and directed the Language Policy Research Center.

He has been a Senior Associate at the National Foreign Language Center and Senior Research Scientist at the Center for the Advanced Study of Language, both at the University of Maryland. He was Editor-in-Chief of the international academic journal Language Policy, published now by Springer Science from 2002 until 2007, and is Publications Director of Asian TEFL and editor-in-chief of its journal.

He is currently writing a book on language management.

DR. DAVID BRADLEY

Dr. David Bradley is a graduate of Linguistic as Magna Com Laude at the Columbia College. He continued and finished his Ph.D in Phonetics and Linguistics in the University of London in the year 1975. He is currently at La Trobe University, lecturing, tutoring and coordinating subjects for a variety of linguistic subjects in all areas of linguistic from first to fifth year levels. He has designed and introduced at least seven subjects which are now being used by the university. Dr. Bradley is also fully involved in the design, implementation and management of Chinese courses upto Honours as well as Burmese and establishment and coordination of the teaching of Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Burmese and Hindi, making a total of 13 appointments in that area. Prior to that, he has designed new courses for University of Melbourne within the Linguistic Program and it was implemented for various undergraduate and Honours Programs, Honours and Postgraduate Supervision. Dr. Bradley is not only excelling in line of lecturing, design and implementation but also in supervision. He was the principal supervisor of 27 completed Ph.D, 8 MA, 4 Med, 4 MA Prelim and 17 Honour Students. Currently, 6 Ph.D and 2 MA students are under his supervision. Dr. Bradley’s area of expertise also expands in line with Research and Publishing. He has published 27 books, one with Chinese translation, 2 with second editions. He is also a major contributor to 5 languages atlases (one in both Chinese and English edition, another in English and Japanese editions, 2 with second editions). Moreover, he has over 120 refereed articles and over 50 reviews. He has co-edited 5 years of the Australian Journal of Linguistic with RD Sussex. Dr. David Bradley has a wide teaching experience since 1975 in all areas of linguistic at all levels and in Asian languages.

PROFESSOR JOE LO BIANCO

Prof. Joe Lo Bianco is an Asociate Dean (International) of the Chair of Language and Literacy Education. He is best known as the author of the 1987 National Policy on Languages, which is now being used worldwide as a model of rational language planning. To add to his credit, he has also been invited as a short-term consultant on constitutional language planning in many settings. In 1999, he wrote the National Language Education Plan for the Government of Sri Lanka under World Bank Financing as part of the peace negotiations in that country. And in the year 2000-2002, he was commissioned to provide language policy advice in Scotland.He was also invited to contribute to policy development on languages for the European Year of Languages 2001 and the Council of Europe (2003) and to the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games from 1997 – 2000.

This work was used for both the Athens 2004 Olympics but more substantially for London 2012 and was the subject of an invited presentation in London in March 2006. Some of his research and projects includes providing advice for online and other web-based language learning for the United State Department funded language proficiency activity called Langnet. Prof. Bianco has more than 120 scholarly refereed articles and has written or edited 25 books and major reports. Just this year 2008 alone, Prof. Bianco and his partners has published 7 books, wherein 2 of these books are focusing on Multilingualism.

Prof. Prapart Brudhiprabha

Prof. Prapart Brudhiprabha gained his Masters Degree in Psycho-Linguistics at McGill University and his Ph.D in Educational Linguistics at the University of Toronto. He is the Director of Studies Designate, International Program, at Rajabhat University in Bangkok, Thailand. Linguistics is already a part of his daily life and thus he has engaged himself as a freelance academic/ELT guru, specializing in Psycholinguistics, Second Language acquisition, Bilingual Education and Educational Linguistics.

Prof. Suwilai Premsrirat

Suwilai Premsrirat is a Professor of Linguistics at Mahidol university Thailand. She has been researching and writing on ethnic minority languages in Thailand and mainland Southeast Asia since 1975 specializing in Mon-Khmer languages. Her major publications include a Thesaurus and Dictionary Series of Khmu in Southeast Asia ( which was the result of her extensive studies of Khmu in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and China), Ethnolinguistic mapping of Thailand, and Endangered languages. Her work on endangered languages includes a survey of endangered lanuages in Thailand; documentary work on languages in Thailand such as Nothern Khmer, So (Thavueng), Nyah Kur, Chong, Kasong as well as the Iduh language in Laos and Vietnam; and language revitalization programs for Chong, Nyah Kur, Thavueng, Gong, Lavua, Mpiand Mlabri. Professor Suwilai is the founder of the Research Center for Documentation and Revitalization of Endangered Languages and Cultures. She is currently working in language planning for bilingual education, using Patani Malay as bridge language of instruction in Thailand’s Deep South.

Dr. Kimmo Kosonen

Kimmo Kosonen is a consultant for multilingual education with SIL International as well as a lecturer and researcher at Payap University in Thailand. He holds a PhD in Education from University of Joensuu, Finland, with a specialisation on basic education in developing countries. He has conducted research in Southeast and South Asia, as well as taught in universities in Thailand and Finland. Dr Kosonen is also consulted by agencies such as SEAMEO, UNESCO and UNICEF on language-in-education issues. His research interests include multilingual and non-formal education in developing countries, language planning, language policy, and minority language development. He has also published articles, book chapters and monographs on these topics.

Carolyn J. (Carol) Benson, Ph.D.

Carol Benson became interested in the mismatch between home and school languages while working as a Peace Corps teacher trainer in Sierra Leone in the early 1980s. Her subsequent work has included teacher training, curriculum development and program design and implementation in the field of mother tongue-based education. Benson holds a Ph.D in Social Sciences and Comparative Education from the University of California, Los Angeles (1994). She is currently based at the Centre for Teaching and Learning at Stockholm University, specializing in university-level pedagogy. Benson consults frequently in multilingual countries, pursuing her interests in bi- and multilingual education. She has work experience in the Americas (Argentina, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico and the USA), in Europe (Sweden and Spain), in Asia (Laos and Vietnam), and in Africa (Angola, Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-Conakry, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and South Africa).

Recently she has been working with UNICEF and the Ministry of Education and Training in Vietnam to design and implement a pilot bilingual program in Khmer, Hmong and J’rai and Vietnamese.
As an active researcher, Benson has ongoing interests in determining effective implementation strategies for mother tongue-based schooling, examining the unique talents of students and teachers from bi- or multilingual contexts, documenting how language competence influences learning of subject matter across the curriculum, and exploring how use of the mother tongue may facilitate girls' education.  Last year she was part of a team researching how the educational language policy of Ethiopia is being implemented in each of its autonomous regions.