Elizabeth Scurfield graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Chinese from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. She has nearly 30 years' experience of teaching Chinese to beginners. She is a former chair of the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Westminster in London.Song Lianyi grew up and was educated in Beijing. He has taught Chinese as a foreign language for more than 15 years. He is a lecturer in Chinese at SOAS. He completed his Ph.D.

in language teaching techniques at the Institute of Education, University of London.