Syed Abdul Manan, PhD, is Associate Professor of Multilingual Education at Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education, Kazakhstan. His research, teaching, and supervision interests include language education policy and planning, English Medium Instruction (EMI), multilingual practices, World Englishes, and policy issues related to the politics, economics, and sociology of languages, linguistic rights, and social justice. His research has been published in top- tier journals that include Language Policy, Language Problems and Language Planning, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Multilingua, Current Issues in Language Planning, World Englishes, and others. He is co- editor of the book Multilingual Selves and Motivations for Learning Languages other than English in Asian Contexts (Hajar & Manan, 2024).

Anas Hajar, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan. He is particularly interested in motivational issues in language learning and intercultural engagement. He also works in the areas of internationalization and education abroad, language learning strategies, and shadow education.