About CEC

Eowyn Crisfield is a Canadian-educated specialist in bilingualism, bilingualism in education, and teacher-training. She holds a B.Ed. in Teaching English as a Second/Foreign Language, and a Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics, with specialisations in bilingualism and bilingual education. Eowyn has over 20 years experience in the field of Applied Linguistics, and has a background that covers research, teaching and teacher-training, and supporting bilingual families. Her past institutional experience includes English-language teaching, language department coordination, curriculum development, lecturing in Initial Teacher Education programmes (methodolgy, sociolinguistics, language acquisition), and doing academic development for educational organisations.

Over the years she has developed a number of unique services, including Family Language Planning and a whole-school “Every teacher is a language teacher” professional development program for language support in schools. Eowyn continues to research in the field of bilingualism, with a special interest in promoting language equality in schools, and the integration of “languages across the curriculum”.

CEC promotes a holistic approach to languages in schools, in which leadership, teaching staff, support staff, and parents work together to encourage academic, cognitive, linguistic, and socio-emotional growth through all a child’s languages. This approach focuses on building and sharing knowledge about bilingualism through education, and developing collaborative practices involving all members of a child’s “learning team”.

Speaking Engagements

A significant aspect of bridging between research and schools is continuing to share practice-based research and work to a wider audience, through conferences and publications. Some of CEC's recent conference contributions are listed below.


Alliance for International Education Conference: Internationalising Schools (Amsterdam, Oct. 6-8, 2017)

Strand Session: Languages in the Classroom: The final frontier

International Symposium on Bilingualism (Limerick, June 11-14, 2017)

Paper Presentation: Translanguaging Teaching: Reintegrating multilingual practice into natural contexts

Languages in Africa Special Interest Group Conference (Reading, May 11, 2017)

Translanguaging Teaching in Kenya: Challenges and Opportunities

ECIS EAL/Mother Tongue Conference (Copenhagen, Mar. 2-5, 2017)

Break out session: Mother Tongue at the Center: Using Structured Translanguaging in the International Schools

CIS Symposium on Intercultural Learning (Amsterdam, March 9-10, 2017)

Session: Translanguaging in International Schools: Bringing Language Diversity into the Classroom

CIS Symposium on Intercultural Learning (Singapore, March 23-24, 2017)

Session: Mother Tongue in International Schools: Not Just a Side-Order, a Main Dish!

DRONGO Festival of Multilingualism (Sept. 30-Oct. 1, 2016)

Lecture: Bilingual Education: Are we getting it right?

Children with Special Needs Day Conference (September 2015 & September 2016)

“SEN or EAL? Untangling the web” & “Dynamic Multilingualism in International Schools: Supporting the whole child”

Bangor International Conference on Bilingualism in Education (June 10-12, 2016)

Paper: Translanguaging Teaching: Comparing traditional (bilingual) and super-diverse contexts

Round table: Teaching with and for diversity: What teachers need to know about language and how researchers can (and should!) support them. With Urszula Clark, Esther Daborn, Sally Zacharias and Lise Fontaine)

Alliance for International Education Conference, Bangkok, (Feb. 26-28, 2016)

Strand session: Mother Tongue in International Schools – A new road map?

IB AEM Regional Conference, The Hague (Oct. 31, 2015)

Break-out session: Mother Tongue in IB Schools

British Association of Applied Linguistics annual conference, University of Warwick (September 3-6, 2014)

Paper: Beyond EAL: Supporting Language Learners in British Schools

BAAL Language Learning and Teaching Conference, University of Leeds (July 2-4, 2014)

Paper: Second Language Teaching at the Centre: Promoting language-learning across the curriculum

Professional Memberships for Research:

  • British Association for Applied Linguistics
    • Language Learning and Teaching SIG
    • Linguistics and Language Knowledge in the Curriculum SIG
    • Languages in Africa SIG

Professional Memberships for Practice:

  • NALDIC (National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum)
  • ECIS (The Educational Collaborative for International Schools)
  • AAIE (Association for the Advancement of International Education): Affiliate Member

Eowyn Crisfield is an accredited educational consultant registered with the Society of Education Consultants, and is registered teacher/teacher trainer with the CRKBO (Central Registraar for Continuing Education) in the Netherlands, where she currently lives.