David Peterson is a language creator and author. He’s created languages for many television shows and films, among them HBO’s Game of Thrones, the CW’s The 100, Syfy’s Defiance, and Netflix’s Bright. He’s the author of “Living Language Dothraki” and “The Art of Language Invention”. He has BAs in English and Linguistics from UC Berkeley (2003), and an MA in Linguistics from UC San Diego (2005).

Marc Okrand devised the dialogue and coached the actors speaking the Klingon language heard in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and Star Trek Into Darkness. He also created the Atlantean language heard in the animated feature Atlantis: The Lost Empire. The Klingon language he developed has continued to be used in the later Star Trek TV series. In addition, he created Vulcan, Romulan, Kelpien, and other languages for several Star Trek films and TV series. He is the author of The Klingon Dictionary, The Klingon Way: A Warrior’s Guide, and Klingon for the Galactic Traveler, and is an associate producer of the documentary Conlanging: The Art of Crafting Tongues. He has a PhD in Linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

I’ve taught linguistics at various universities and published a number of academic papers on the vocabulary of French. I then moved on to IT (Information Science) in which I also published four books on operating systems. Lately I have come back to linguistics and the teaching of French, English and Spanish.

BigBong is a social media influencer focusing on audiovisual entertainment related to culture and languages. His YouTube channel is mostly known for the videos of accents from different countries. However, he has also started teaching courses in both French and Japanese for Absolute Beginners with an emphasis on spoken language.

He is also an actor taking part in a variety of projects. For instance, he is one of the two main characters from the web series FRAJALICAN directed by Mark Hachem. His approach when teaching, tutoring and coaching is inspired by acting exercises from theatre.

In terms of academic background, Bong Sou holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the University of Montreal in Canada, a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from Sorbonne Paris Cité University in France and he was an exchange student at Seoul National University in South Korea.

Frank Bonkowski, PhD, has been teaching and creating ESL materials for over 30 years. Reach him at frank@frankbonkowski.com.

Léo Bourdon is a dynamic person known for his community engagement for several years. He was born in Cornwall, Ontario from a Franco-Ontarian family. On his mother’s side, Léo is a direct descendant from the first colonists of Windsor-Detroit when they settled the region in 1701. After a hiatus in Quebec, Léo’s family moved back to Ontario where he got reacquainted with the francophone community. By working to preserve the French language, Léo got interested in learning other languages and although he doesn’t consider himself a ‘polyglot’ yet, he made the link between culture and languages throughout his experiences. After working for several francophone non-profit organisations, Léo now calls Ottawa his home and has lived there for the past 20 years.

Nella Buffmire has taught Spanish and English as a second language for 13 years. She completed her Master’s Degree in Southern Spain. After moving to Austin, Texas she started an academic and language coaching business. She has been able to provide language coaching and instruction in a variety of educational formats. Nella has worked as a social worker and crisis counselor with multiple non-profits throughout Texas, New York and Spain. The skills required in these positions have allowed her to develop and teach self-care techniques. Her focus is to instruct her students in an environment that encourages and fosters positive feelings about learning a language.

Being a software engineer and a language lover has many interesting crossovers in the modern world. I’m a machine learning hobbyist, and have been fascinated with making computers understand and use language. Developer of Amikumu, traveler, lifetime learner.

Kerstin is a native German speaker and comes from the beautiful Moselle valley. She studied 6 languages in Germany and then packed them up and moved England, where she has added 3 more so far including her most recent language crush, Welsh.  Kerstin runs www.fluentlanguage.co.uk. Over the last 5 years, she has built her reputation as an advocate of independent and creative language learning, created retreats, coaching packages and courses, been featured in the Guardian, the Cut, and on BBC Radio, and worked tirelessly to change how the world sees language learning. She is the host of the Fluent Show podcast, and author of the guides Language Habit Toolkit, Fluency Made Achievable and The Vocab Cookbook.

Dr Kai L. Chan is a Distinguished Fellow at INSEAD. Previously he was a special adviser to the UAE federal government on competitiveness and statistics, where he focused on that country’s positioning on global performance indices. Prior to his stint in the UAE, Dr Chan served as an associate and the in-house economist for a consumer finance merchant banking firm in Manhattan. Before that, he worked in the Singapore office of a global management consulting firm. Chan’s expertise/research cover education, income distribution, migration, government & policy, and performance measurement. He is the creator of the Power Language Index, Gender Progress Index, and Intelligence Capital Index. Dr Chan holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto and PhD from Princeton University. Kai grew up in Toronto, Canada, but currently resides in Montreal. He speaks English, French, Cantonese, Mandarin and German, and is currently learning Russian.

Antoine Clerc-Renaud is an editor, author and video game journalist. He focuses on the history of this medium. He has written–and co-written–five books on this subject.

James Corl is a language loving, polyglot teenager. Starting with Italian when he was 12, he has since gone on to learn French (B2), Spanish (B2), and Chinese (A2), in addition to his native English. James is a tireless advocate of greater understanding between the international language learning community and academia, believing that both have unique perspectives that can help all learners throughout the world. He became the first (and only) student to present at the New York State Association of Foreign Language Teachers’ (NYSAFLT) Annual Conference in 2017, where he gave a presentation titled “Say Goodbye to Shy: A Student’s Perspective in the Classroom”, which outlined his independent language learning alongside his learning in the traditional classroom. He has also written articles for some of the most prestigious blogs in language learning, such as Fluent in 3 Months, I Will Teach You A Language, and more.

Paul has studied languages for over forty years and has taught for over thirty. A graduate of Middlebury College, Vermont (USA) in Russian and classical languages in 1982, Paul worked accompanying American tour groups to the then Soviet Union and China from 1983-1988. In 1988 Paul received a master’s in Teaching English as a Second Language from Hunter College, City University of New York. Since then, Paul has continued to study and teach languages in various types of classrooms and to various segments of the public. In 1993 Paul received a Fulbright award to teach English at the Linguistic University in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. Since 2004, Paul has taught languages at Bard High School Early College in New York City. Paul earned a master’s in Spanish language and culture from the University of Salamanca, Spain, in 2008. Paul presented at LangFest in 2017.

Audrey Grier is an ESL teacher with 14 years of experience teaching adult immigrants from around the world, both in Denver, Colorado and Paterson, New Jersey, USA. She has a Masters Degree in ESL Curriculum and Instruction from Kean University. Elementary school French class was the spark for her love of languages. The Spanish language became a defining part of her life through friendships, music, and travel during college. Learning new phrases and communicating in various languages, continues to bring her joy as she connects with new people.

Mark Hachem is an actor, director, YouTuber and social media influencer, who merges his love of culture and language with the world of entertainment, to bring laughter, inspire, and bring people together from around the world and celebrate diversity.

A world-traveling, polyglot linguist, Dr. Haloj has been involved in virtually every facet of the “language profession” for over three decades. He earned his Doctorate of Modern Languages (DML) at Middlebury College. His areas of expertise include Romance, Celtic and Iroquoian languages; language acquisition; language pedagogy; and critical discourse analysis. But his love of language and cultures often leads him well beyond the limits of his own specialities, thereby giving him the opportunity to keep learning and to renew his vision of the world through “beginner’s eyes”.

Jonathan is an American English teacher, polyglot, and founder of the 30-Day Speaking Challenge, which motivates language learners to develop a daily habit of speaking their target language(s). He speaks English, Spanish, French, Russian, German, and Italian at various levels. He has lived and taught in France for 6 years and Mexico for the last 10, where he currently works as a TOEFL prep coach and raises his two trilingual children.

Steve Kaufmann is a graduate of L’Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris, France (1966), and a former Canadian Diplomat and forest industry executive. He is co-founder (with his son Mark), of LingQ.com, an online language learning system, and community. Steve speaks more than 15 languages, has written a book called The Way of the Linguist, A Language Learning Odyssey, has a blog called The Linguist on Language, and a youtube channel under the name of lingosteve.

David is a Canadian linguist, polyglot and worlds creator who takes a particular interest in language history and in the pronunciation of our world’s languages, created or not. He particularly likes the Nguni languages of South Africa, and the Kartvelian, Turkic and Indigenous languages, mostly of North America.

Originally from France, Caroline Legouix has been living in Quebec for about twenty years. She studied English Language and Civilization, then Psychology and Academic and Career Advising. After having worked in different fields, such as advisor in career management at École Polytechnique de Montréal, she now dedicates herself to writing. She has published a collection of short stories and a novel. Some of her short stories have been published in magazines as well as in a textbook for teaching French as a second language. She shares her interest in the French language and for writing by hosting writing workshops. She speaks English, regrets having forgotten German and Romanian (which she studied at school and university), and has some knowledge of Spanish, Japanese, and Serbian. She would like her books to be translated into English and Esperanto.

Vladis Lim, born in Moscow, Russia, has had a tendency, since his teenage years, to acquire notions of new foreign languages through his numerous international encounters and passion for world’s cinema, music and cuisine. Settling in Montreal in 2013, he has been a journalist for a Francophone African media outlet since 2015. An engineering school graduate in France, with additional training in economics and sociology, he is interested in international relations and economic, political and cultural exchanges between Asian and African countries. He speaks Russian, English, French, German, Spanish, Swahili and Indonesian, and is learning around ten other languages such as Mandarin, Wolof and Tamil.

Allison currently teaches French at the Marion Cross School in Norwich, VT, and is passionate about providing her students of all ages with comprehensible input. She relishes the opportunity of working with multiple age groups and loves her students and having fun, playing with stuffies, and encouraging circumlocution. This school year Allison is teaching kindergarten and first, second, fourth, and sixth grades. She loves to share with other teachers and blogs about her classroom experiences and ideas at cicanteach.com. Allison holds a BA from Williams College and MAs from Middlebury College and the University of Mississippi. She served as Co-President of the Vermont Foreign Language Association (VFLA) from 2012-2018 and was named VFLA Teacher of the Year in 2019.

Lori Lucas is originally from Chicago where she was exposed to Yiddish and studied French. She lived for many years in Brussels, Belgium where she taught AP/IB English literature and composition at the International School of Brussels before moving to Boulder, Colorado where she now resides and teaches Jewish-American Fiction and Shakespeare at the University of Colorado. Lori has a passion for art, travel, language and literature. Her volume poetry entitled Chiaroscuro is in its 4th printing.

Gretchen McCulloch is an internet linguist and the author of Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language. She is the Resident Linguist at Wired and the co-creator of Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics. She lives in Montreal, but also on the internet.

Julie Morin is a communications advisor at the Translation Bureau’s Language Portal of Canada. She has over 12 years’ experience in the field: she graduated from the University of Sherbrooke in 2008 with a degree in communication, writing and multimedia, and has been a French certified editor since 2016. Julie is enthusiastic about giving people the tools they need to improve their communication at school and work. A seasoned speaker, she joined Toastmasters over 10 years ago to develop presentation techniques for connecting with audience members. Before becoming a proud member of the Language Portal, Julie made daily use of the site’s resources in her role as French revision team leader in a federal organization. She therefore knows the Portal’s writing tools better than anyone and will show you which resources you need to communicate effectively in a Canadian context. Get your questions ready!

María, global traveler and self-employed business woman, is a trained, certified, and experienced teacher and DELE examiner, and certified SIELE exam trainer with a degree in Arts and a masters in Scenery Arts. She is a Spanish grammar expert who loves exploring creativity, culture, art, and self-expression in the target language as a way to connect the brain knowledge with heart knowledge.

Elisa is a professional multilingual teacher and language enthusiast. She teaches Italian, German, English, Spanish, Russian, French, Dutch, Catalan, Portuguese, Greek, Hindi, Arabic and Esperanto. She is specialised in multilingual teaching and helps students learn several languages at the same time and speak them from day one without mixing them up. She is the author of book ‘Multilingual learning: how to become fluent in multiple languages’. She is a certified language examiner and holds two BAs in Translation and Interpreting, an MA in International Communication and an MA in Didactics. Elisa organises workshops and webinars where you can start speaking one or more languages from the very first moment and have your first conversation after just a few minutes. She also teaches online and is a multilingual mentor and coach and can help you improve your language skills quickly. In addition, Elisa is one of the organisers of the Polyglot Gathering. Check out her books and videos on her website http://www.speakfromdayonewithelisa.com or her Facebook page @Speakfromdayonewithelisa and subscribe to her YouTube channel PassionForLanguages.

Marc Pomerleau is a certified translator and university lecturer. After earning a bachelor’s degree in Latin American studies and a graduate diploma in translation from McGill University, he obtained a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in translation studies from Université de Montreal. His research focuses on language issues in the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America, most notably on Romance languages, minority languages, the history of translation and the relationship between language, power and politics. A lecturer at Université de Montréal and Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR), he teaches translation, editing, translation theory and introductory classes to foreign languages and cultures. His working languages are French, English, Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan, and he has studied a dozen other languages, including Arabic, Creole, Galician and Italian.

Alexandra is a trained speech-language pathologist who taught Deaf high school students during the school year. She is passionate about learning languages and has a special interest in sign languages. Curious about everything, Alexandra is constantly striving to learn about different topics.

Azren, also known as “Polyglot Azren” and “Azren the Language Nerd” is passionate about learning languages. He currently speaks 5 languages and has a goal of speaking 8 at an advanced level by the age of 45. He documents his progress and shares advice for language learners on his podcast “The Language Learning Show” and on all major social media platforms. In his free time, Azren loves to travel and watch superhero movies. As for his work, our fellow polyglot runs the Language Nerds community in Calgary, Canada which provides opportunities for Calgarians to learn French, Spanish, and/or Mandarin.

A language and travel enthusiast, Suzanne Roy has used several languages over the years, including Spanish, German, Italian, Turkish and Portuguese. A self-taught woman, she loves sharing her passions. She has thus taught French, English, Spanish, and more recently Esperanto, which became her main language when traveling. Music, bridge and medical jargon are also languages she makes regular use of.

Phaedra Royle, Ph.D., is a certified professor at the École d’orthophonie et d’audiologie (School of Speech Pathology and Audiology) at the University of Montreal as well as a member of the Centre for Research on Brain, Language, and Music (CRBLM). Her research revolves around the topics of psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, language development disorders, language acquisition, morphology (the structure of words), and the treatment of sentences in French.

Born and raised in Germany, “Anja from Alemania” left her home country 10 years ago to work, live and study in various countries. She is the founder and CEO of ZALOA Languages, a language institute that works with native speakers from all over the world. The headquarters are based in Mexico where Anja lives since 2014. After having tested the efficiency of language learning combined with fitness workouts, in 2018 Anja launched together with her team the YouTube channel “Burn&Learn Languages” that shows how to practice German vocabulary whilst doing physical exercises.

Ninaatig Staats Pangowish teaches Anishinaabemowin at Wandering Spirit School in the TDSB. He also teaches community members at The Native Canadian Center of Toronto. He has formerly taught classes at York University. He has recently started Ninaatigoons Learning to do translations, provide consultancy on learning Anishinaabemowin and start more community based programming. Ninaatig is devoted to the revitalization fo Anishinaabemowin. He studied linguistics at McMaster, before pursuing an immersion program in Anishinaabemowin at Kenjigewin-Teg. He went on to obtain his B.Ed from Nipissing in order to teach language. In September, in will pursue his M.Ed focusing on incorporting cultural practices to deliever better outcomes for students. Ninaatig is thankful for this opportunity to share his love for Anishinaabemowin at LangFest.

Born in France to a German mother and a Japanese father, Anna grew up speaking French, German and Japanese. She has been exploring body language and the fascination relationship between your movements, your sound, your breath, your brain, your learning, your creativity and your stress management skills for more than 25 years. In 2012, she created Kinéson, a “yoga of the mind and voice,” which offers a complete experience of what nourishes her practice (Gaiayoga, vowel chanting, Brain Gym®, integrated and archetypal movements, Jin Shin Jyutsu®, Hatha Yoga, Pneumacorps® relaxation and breath reeducation and Body Mind Centering). She teaches in France, Germany, Japan and in Montreal in four languages–French, German, Italian and Japanese. The simple yet effective exercises she practices all day long also help her in her day job as a specialized translator of personal development and wellness books (more than 50 books).

Dr. Emmanuel Ternon is a software engineer turned polyglot with a passion for Chinese characters. An avid traveller, he has lived in four different countries (France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan) and currently speaks 10 languages, including three from East Asia (Japanese, Korean and Mandarin Chinese). Dr. Ternon recently published the book “Traditional Chinese Characters: A Translingual Writing System” (ISBN 978-1-729-16447-1) to raise awareness about the fact that Chinese characters (especially in their traditional forms) are the key to efficiently learning multiple East Asian languages because they make it possible to write a large portion of the vocabularies of these languages the exact same way. By combining his software development skills with his knowledge of East Asian languages, Dr. Ternon aims to create a variety of software tools useful for people learning or working with these languages.

With her teaching motto “Pour apprendre à parler, il faut parler !” (“To learn how to talk, you have to talk!”) Léa is an advocate of experiential learning. She holds a Master’s degree from la Sorbonne university in Linguistics and she has taught more than 5000 hours of online lessons since her debut in 2013. Léa recently formed a team of linguists and developers and together they launched the Staircase, “A Home for Language Learners” with language courses and tutors available for French and Spanish lessons. A linguist at heart, she will be with us at LangFest for sharing her latest academic research.

Nicholas Walker teaches ESL at Ahuntsic College and has received awards for his teaching (AQPC Award, 2019), his leadership in Education (Sesquicentennial Pin, 2017), and for his Actively Engaged series of ESL textbooks (TESL Canada Innovation Award, 2017). Nicholas holds an M.A. in Applied Linguistics (2009), a TESL Certificate (2002), and a B.A. in Literature (1995), all earned at Concordia University. He began developing textbooks in South Korea, where he taught for 5 years, and currently spends his free time writing textbooks for his self-publishing operation Bokomaru Publications, serving the ESL Coordination Subcommittee for the Province of Quebec, speaking at conferences, and developing new features for his popular grammar checker website VirtualWritingTutor.com. You can learn more about him here: blog.VirtualWritingTutor.com.

Jade Jia Ying Wu completed her Teaching Certificate Program in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and TCSOL (Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages) from Teachers College, Columbia University and Beijing Language and Culture University in 2016. She has taught Chinese in classrooms of various sizes and to students of all ages, in both the U.S. and China. Jade was born and raised in Guangdong, China, where Cantonese is one of the main dialects. She moved to Michigan at the age of 13 and spent most of her young adulthood living in New York City. Experiencing both Chinese and American cultures, she was often confused yet fascinated by the differences between them. She is also the author of Learn to Speak Cantonese I: A Beginner’s Guide to Mastering Conversational Cantonese and Learn to Speak Mandarin I. In her free time, Jade also enjoys learning other languages such as Spanish, Vietnamese and Korean.

Tetsu Yung was raised in a multilingual/multicultural setting, which allowed him to be exposed to 5 languages by the age of 6 and 10 languages by the age of 20. Today, Tetsu is fluent in English, French, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish. However, as the father of 3 children, aged 7, 5 and 2, Tetsu’s mission now is not to learn more languages, but to raise his kids to become multilingual just like himself. He is the author of the eBook “Pampers to Polyglots: 7 ideas for raising multilinguals like me”.