Jon Jilani has been a professional linguist and writer for more than a decade. He is also the author of the first widely-available Tajik-English/English-Tajik dictionary, published in 2008. As a content development specialist for Language Testing International, he was responsible for creating scholarly articles and publications and creating and rating language certification tests in the English, Persian-Farsi, Persian-Dari, Tajiki and Pashto languages. He currently continues to work in language certification and language education on a freelance basis.
Christopher Puma has instructed English as a foreign language and English as a second language courses since 1996. He received his TESOL certification from Long Island University and holds a master of science in teaching and a master of fine arts in creative writing from New School University. He has taught at the University of Petroleum in mainland China, IS 227 Edward B. Shallow Middle School, Long Island University, The University of New Haven and New York Institute of Technology. Additionally, for more than eight years, he has worked as an ACTFL-certified master language proficiency tester and content specialist for Language Testing International.