About

We are a collaborative of educators, researchers, and school leaders who share a vision: international schools that are truly international, linguistically inclusive, culturally aware, and deeply equitable.

We are rooted in decades of research and real practice.

Oxford Collaborative for Multilingualism in Education (OCME) brings together the most experienced and respected experts, researchers and practitioners working with international schools today, specialising in language teaching and learning, the development of bilingualism, language policy development, and language curricula development.
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We believe that every language matters.

Not just in the classroom, but in every corridor, staff meeting, and policy document. In every relationship. In every child’s sense of self. Language is identity, and every student’s identity deserves to be seen, supported, and celebrated.
Because linguistic inclusion is not an add-on. It is a whole-school commitment.
It is not something schools do. It is something they are.

Why schools choose us

We work in partnership with schools from the inside out - starting with leadership, reaching every teacher, staff member, and family. We embed change that transforms school cultures, not just the classrooms.

Whole-School, Whole-Hearted

Sustainable change starts with leadership and flows through the entire community, from headteacher to support staff.

Research-Informed, Practice-Driven

Our work is grounded in the latest academic insights and shaped by real-world experience.

Collaboration Over Prescription

We co-create with schools, respecting each unique context and working in true partnership.

When multilingual learners thrive, everyone benefits.

Meet our team

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Dr Eowyn Crisfield

Dr Eowyn Crisfield is the Founder and Director of Oxford Collaborative for Multilingualism in Education.
She is a specialist in bi/multilingualism in families and schools and in teaching English as a second/foreign language. Eowyn is an accredited educational consultant and an Honorary Norham Fellow, Department of Education, University of Oxford.

She works with schools internationally on areas related to language acquisition and bilingualism. She is author of Bilingual Families: A practical language planning guide (2021). She has raised three multilingual children.

Niki Cooper-Robbins

Niki is British and Dutch, and she’s currently living in the Netherlands. She’s an Educational Development Consultant, an Artist, a PhD candidate and an Art Therapy Student.

Niki’s a keen advocate for multilingualism and student voice, particularly for ESL and refugee background students and those who are neurodivergent, like herself. She’s developed expertise in multilingualism in education, specifically ELL and home/best language maintenance programmes to support emergent multilingual students.
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Susan Stewart

Susan has lived and worked in South Africa, Thailand, the UAE, Belgium, Oman, Sweden and the UK, and has raised two bilingual children. As a lifelong learner of languages, she speaks, to varying degrees, English, French, Dutch, German, Afrikaans, Swedish, Arabic and BSL.

With a background in international education, developing and leading multilingual language programmes, Susan has a particular interest in language policy as a driving force in promoting multilingualism within families, schools and on a national level.
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Paul Jacobs

Paul lives in Japan, where he works to support multilingual and neurodivergent learners to connect with the world around them through language learning. His focus includes Japanese-English biliteracy, cross-cultural collaboration, and supporting students with special education needs, particularly those with dyslexia.

As the Head Researcher at the Institute of Bilingual Science (IBS), he connects academic research on bilingualism with practical guidance for educators and parents.

Paul also facilitates professional development that brings together Japanese and English-speaking teachers to support their multilingual learners.

He resides in Okinawa, Japan, raising bilingual daughters.
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Dr Cate Hamilton

Dr Cate Hamilton began her career teaching English and French in secondary schools in Glasgow.

As a new mother she encouraged her children to explore languages, and spent a decade developing Babel Babies, a multilingual music program for early years settings and parent-and-child groups. This prompted her to wonder what research evidence underpinned the practice of using songs for teaching languages.

In 2020, Cate joined the Department of Education at the University of Oxford where she completed her MSc in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition and then her DPhil in Education, conducting research into how songs, chants and stories might contribute to primary school pupils’ oral language learning in French MFL lessons. She is now a Departmental Lecturer in Quantitative Research Methods and EAL at the department.

Passionate about facilitating knowledge exchange between teachers and researchers, Cate organised the international NALDIC conference from 2020 to 2024. She is a keen advocate of multilingual and creative approaches to exploring and learning second/foreign languages, and also of developing research that can inform teaching practice. 
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Dr Jo Skelton

Dr Jo Skelton is an experienced educator with over 33 years of experience in teaching, consultancy and research. She is a specialist in multilingual mathematics education and works with schools nationally and internationally to develop their multilingual learner pedagogies.

Jo’s PhD is in mathematics education and applied linguistics, focusing on translanguaging in bilingual mathematics classroom contexts. She is passionate about harnessing linguistic diversity and works with teachers internationally on a number of related research projects.
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Dr Lorna Caputo-Greenall

Dr Lorna Caputo-Greenall is an educator, researcher, and consultant who helps international schools support multilingual children. Based in Switzerland, she focuses on how multilingual children learn and use languages in global and transnational settings. She has a special interest in complex multilingual children, particularly in distinguishing between typical language development and less typical patterns that may indicate SpLD.

She works with schools to create programmes that celebrate and strengthen students’ full range of languages, blending inquiry-based learning with support for home languages. She also advises on the new IB Language and Culture course.

Alongside her school work, Lorna is a Research Associate at the University of Bern’s Centre for the Study of Language and Society and leads the International Schools group for the UK’s NALDIC. She has written Using Inquiry-Based Learning to Teach Additional Languages (2014) and has a new book coming soon: Navigating the Multilingual Mosaic.
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Sarah van Kempen-Cullip

Sarah van Kempen-Cullip is a researcher-practitioner and specialist in multilingualism and teaching English as a second/foreign language. She is also an educational consultant and former Fulbright scholar. Sarah has teaching experience in both international and public school contexts in the United States, Germany and the Netherlands. Much of this experience has been with refugee background students.

Sarah is passionate about inclusive language education policy and practice that fosters student well-being and empowerment and elevates student voice. Sarah resides in the Netherlands and is raising a bilingual son.
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