About the authors

Hong Zhu is dean of the Foreign Language Teaching Department of Tianjin University of Commerce. She is also a member of the Teaching Steering Committee of the university and editorial board of Research on Higher Education of Tianjin University of Commerce.

Graduating from Nankai University in 1987 with a bachelor’s degree of art in English Language and literature, she has been devoting herself to the teaching of English courses to students of various levels in different majors at the university. She obtained the associate professorship in 2001. In 2005, she went to Charles Sturt University as an academic scholar attending lectures on accounting and organizational behavior. Now she is working on her MA.

In addition to language teaching and presiding projects concerning language pedagogy, she exerts herself to cross-disciplinary research in fields outside language. As head of the sub-project ‘A Comparative Study on the Talent-cultivation Mechanism in Research-oriented Universities between China and Australia,’ she participated in the project ‘A Strategic Research on the Development of the Knowledge-oriented Personnel in New Technology-based Enterprises’ sponsored by the National Leading Group for Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning. She is one of the main participants of the project ‘Research on UNESCO’s Strategy for the Development of Education’ sponsored by Tianjin Leading Group for Education Science Planning and one of the compilers of the 2007 Reports on the Development of International Education Policies. With a good command of both English and Chinese, she participated in English–Chinese dictionary compiling as well, two of which are A Classified Chinese–English Economy and Trade Dictionary as one of the deputy editors and A New Comprehensive English–Chinese Dictionary as an editor.

Hong Zhu may be contacted at the Foreign Language Teaching

Department, Tianjin University of Commerce, East Entrance of Jinba

Road, Beichen District, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China.

E-mail: [email protected].

Shiyan Lou is now an associate professor at the School of Economics, University of Jinan.

After obtaining her Bachelor of Arts Degree in English Language and Literature at Nankai University in 1999, Shiyan became a teacher of English at the Department of Foreign Languages Education, Tianjin University of Commerce. After developing a keen interest in Economics, she became a postgraduate and then a doctoral student at the School of Economics, Nankai University, obtaining her Master’s and Doctor of Economics Degrees respectively in 2005 and 2009. During this period, Shiyan had been a part-time teacher at Nankai University, teaching such courses as Labour Economics and English for Economics for postgraduates majoring in HRM. Presently, she is an associate professor at School of Economics, University of Jinan, teaching such courses as Economics, Labour Economics, Economics Paper Writing, English for Economics and so on for undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Shiyan specializes in human capital theory and economics of education. In recent years, she has participated in several research projects in these two fields sponsored by, among others, the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science, and several papers published were mostly about education.

Shiyan Lou may be contacted at the School of Economics,

University of Jinan, 106 Jiwei Road, Jinan City, Shandong Province, 250022, China.

E-mail: [email protected]