Bill VanPatten is Professor of Spanish and Second Language Acquisition at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he is also the Director of Spanish Basic Language. His areas of research are input and input processing in second language acquisition and the effects of formal instruction on acquisitional processes. He has published widely in the fields of second language acquisition and language teaching and is a frequent conference speaker and presenter. In addition to Sol y viento, he is also the lead author of ¿Sabías que... ?, Fourth Edition (2004, McGraw-Hill) and Vistazos, Second Edition (2006, McGraw-Hill). He is also the lead author and designer of Destinos and co-author with James F. Lee of Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen, Second Edition (2003, McGraw-Hill). He is also the author of Input Processing and Grammar Instruction: Theory and Research (1996, Ablex/Greenwood) and From input to Output: A Teacher’s Guide to Second Language Acquisition (2003, McGraw-Hill), and he is the editor of Processing Instruction: Theory, Research, and Commentary (2004, Erlbaum). When not engaged in academic activities, he writes fiction and performs stand-up comedy.

Michael J. Leeser is Assistant Professor of Spanish in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics at Florida State University, where he is also Director of the Spanish Basic Language Program. Before joining the faculty at Florida State, he taught a wide range of courses at the secondary and postsecondary levels, including courses in Spanish language and Hispanic cultures, teacher preparation courses for secondary school teachers, and graduate courses in communicative language teaching and second language acquisition. He received his Ph.D. in Spanish (Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2003. His research interests include input processing during second language reading as well as second language classroom interaction. His research has appeared in journals such as Studies in Second Language Acquisition and Language Teaching Research. He also co-authored the CD-ROM, along with Bill VanPatten and Mark Overstreet, for ¿Sabías que… ?, Fourth Edition (2004, McGraw-Hill).

Gregory D. Keating will complete his Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2005. His areas of research include Spanish sentence processing, the role instruction plays in language acquisition, and the acquisition of Spanish syntax and vocabulary. His doctoral research explores the relationship between language processing and grammatical competence in the acquisition of Spanish gender agreement. He is a frequent presenter at conferences in the United States and Mexico. He is also a recipient of several teaching awards, including one from the University of Notre Dame, where he received his M.A. in Spanish Literature. In addition to teaching and research, he has supervised many language courses and teaching assistants and has assisted in the coordination of technology-enhanced lower division Spanish language programs.

Esperanza Román-Mendoza is Associate Professor of Spanish at George Mason University. She received her Ph.D. in General and Spanish Linguistics from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia in Madrid, Spain. Her areas of research are applied linguistics, computer-assisted language learning, and distance education. She has published multiple articles and learning materials and has contributed to the development of instructional software and reference materials in the United States, Germany, and Spain.