Mike Sharwood Smith is an Emeritus Professor at Heriot-Watt University and an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. He has worked in many countries across the world, teaching (applied) linguistics, English language and second language acquisition. He has more than a hundred publications and is known for terms such as 'grammatical consciousness-raising', 'crosslinguistic influence' and 'input-enhancement'. His major interests are the cognitive processes underlying the use and acquisition of languages. With John Truscott, he pioneered a crossdisciplinary framework for framing explanations of many diverse aspects of language acquisition. He is also founding editor of the leading journal Second Language Research.