Shaping the future of international education

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Affiliated Consultant Profile

 

Dr Eowyn Crisfield

Name Prefix
Dr
First Name
Eowyn
Last Name
Crisfield
Biography


Email: eowyn@ocme.uk
Website: https://ocme.uk/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/eowyncrisfield

Area of expertise provided as part of the CIS Affiliated Consultant Network:

  • Appraisal and Professional Development;
  • Curriculum Design;
  • Intercultural Learning


Eowyn Crisfield is a specialist in applied linguistics, multilingual education, language teaching, and language policy, with a career spanning over three decades in academia, consulting, and teacher education. She holds a BEd in TESL (Concordia University), an MA in Applied Linguistics (Concordia University), and a PhD in Applied Linguistics (Oxford Brookes University). She is also an Honorary Norham Fellow with the Department of Education, University of Oxford.

In 2025, Eowyn founded the Oxford Collaborative for Multilingualism in Education (OCME). After working in the field of inclusive approaches to multilingual education in diverse educational settings for almost 20 years, she realised that she needed a village to spread the scope and impact of the work. With OCME, she has brought together a team of practitioners/researchers to continue working to bridge research and real-world application, empowering schools, organisations,, educators, and families to understand and foster linguistic and cultural diversity in homes and schools, including through a catalogue of online self-study courses for educators working with multilingual learners.

 

Areas of Expertise

Eowyn provides a variety of services to meet the diverse needs of international schools regarding language:

  • Whole-school audits (EAL/ELA, Host country, home, and world languages)
  • Language Policy development and implementation
  • Program development:
    • Bilingual/immersion programs
    • EAL/ELA (with the MTS-ELA framework)
    • Home languages programmes
    • Host country language programmes
    • World language programmes
  • Professional development
    • “Every teacher is a language teacher” whole-school CPD program
    • Specialist CPD for language teachers and EAL/ELL teachers
    • Translanguaging Pedagogy in International Schools (training and coaching)
  • “Parents as Language Partners” programme and school-based Family Language Planning

Publications

Books

  • Bilingual Families: A practical language planning guide (Multilingual Matters, 2021)
  • Linguistic and Cultural Innovation in Schools: The Languages Challenge (with co-author Jane Spiro): Palgrave-Macmillan, 2018

Journal articles/chapters (sample)

  • Crisfield, E. (2023). Orientations to Linguistic Diversity in International Schools: Setting a new agenda. RIPE Research Journal, Spring, 11-23.Crisfield, E. (2022). Leading the Way: The new Language Policy for Jersey Education. EAL Journal, 17-20.
  • Crisfield, E. (2021). Multilingualism in schools: Setting up for success. Liv I Skolen, 84-93.
  • Crisfield, E., Holland, A., & Gordon, I. (2021). Translanguaging as a pathway to ethical bilingual education: An exploratory case study from Kenya. In B. Paulsrud, Z. Tian, & J. Toth (Eds.), English-Medium Instruction and Translanguaging (pp. 62-76). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
  • Chalmers, H., & Crisfield, E. (2019). Drawing on linguistic and cultural capital to create positive learning cultures for EAL learners. Impact: Journal of the Chartered College of Teaching(5 Spring 2019), 40-44.

Speaking engagements

Eowyn is a regular speaker at both research-focused and practice-focused conferences and symposia. More information on upcoming events can be found at ocme.uk.

Recommendation from Christopher Bellamy, Assistant Head, British Secondary and High School, Taipei European School

Eowyn has provided exceptional professional development sessions for all of our teachers and the feedback from them continues to be incredibly positive. Similarly, her sessions for parents have been very well received by our community. She has worked closely with key staff in order to improve teachers' practice around supporting language learners. She has kept in touch remotely and continues to share relevant reading and resources, which has been greatly appreciated. Her desire to get to know individual teachers has been crucial in order to ensure that everyone is on board with some of the new approaches to languages that we have adopted (based on her recommendations). Her approachability, coupled with tremendous knowledge and insight, has inspired confidence in our teachers, and everyone looks forward to her visits. She is an excellent rapport builder. On all levels, her work with our school has been invaluable this year and we look forward to achieving much more together in future years.