Pre-sessional Senior Team

Your tutors will be introduced to you at the beginning of the course. They are approachable and dedicated Associate Lecturers and will prepare you for your studies at UCL. Additionally, the Senior Team will also support you while you're on the Pre-sessional and you can read more about them below.

Robert Hughes

Head of Pre-sessional (Acting)

Robert holds a BA (Hons) in English Literature from the University of Sussex and an MA in Applied Linguistics and English Language Teaching from King’s College London, for which he was awarded the Language, Discourse & Communication Outstanding Master’s Student Prize. He also has the Trinity TESOL and the Cambridge DELTA (distinction).

Robert has been teaching for more than 10 years in London, Indonesia and Italy. He has been working on the Pre-sessional since 2016, and began writing materials and helping coordinate the programme in 2018. He is responsible for the overall design and editorship of the materials on the Pre-sessional course.

Yasha Sosenskiy

Pre-sessional Senior Coordinator (E-learning)

Yasha has an MA (Hons) in International Relations from the University of Edinburgh, an MA in English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics from King’s College London, and the Cambridge CELTA.

He has been teaching for over 10 years and has worked as an English language teacher in Colombia, Chile, France, Turkey, Cambodia, and the USA. In the UK, he has taught Politics/International Relations, Computer Skills and English for Academic Purposes at various Higher Education institutions.

Yasha has been working at CLIE since 2018. He is responsible for the planning and delivery of all the digital aspects of the course.

Janeane Owens

Pre-sessional Senior Coordinator (Student Experience)

Janeane has been teaching for over 18 years. She has been working at CLIE since 2011 and has taught across a number of programmes. She has taught on and helped coordinate the UCL Pre-sessional Course since 2015. Prior to this, she taught at universities and educational institutions in China, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Tunisia and Poland.

Janeane has a first degree in History and a Master’s in Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching. In addition, she holds a certificate in teaching English to speakers of other languages (CELTA) and a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching English for Academic Purposes. She became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2015.

Melissa Corlett

Pre-sessional Senior Coordinator (Academic) (Acting)

Melissa is a teacher, teacher trainer and educational materials writer. She holds an MSc in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition from the University of Oxford and a Cambridge DELTA. She has also completed a certificate in Effective Online Course Design at the University of Oxford.

Melissa has been teaching for over 16 years and has worked in the United Kingdom, Russia and Italy. Before joining CLIE in 2020, she taught Academic English at the Royal College of Art and trained new language teachers for the Trinity TESOL and Diploma teaching qualifications. She is a published materials writer and has written English Language Teaching materials for Pearson and Oxford University Press.

Ben Nazer

Pre-sessional Associate Lecturer

Ben has been teaching for over 17 years. He has worked on UCL Pre-sessional courses at CLIE since 2018. Previous to this, he taught Academic English at the University of Greenwich and at various international colleges.

He has an MA in Applied Linguistics and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education and a Diploma in English Language Teaching. He was awarded Fellowship of Advance Higher Education in 2020.

Andrew Hewitt

Pre-sessional Associate Lecturer

Andrew graduated in English and Philosophy (Hons) from the University of Leeds and then completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) in Secondary English. He also completed the CELTA qualification with Trinity College and the DELTA with the University of Cambridge.

He has been teaching since 2002 and has worked at language institutes in the UK, Japan, Oman, Libya, Colombia and the UAE, mainly working for the British Council. He has been working at CLIE since 2019 as a Teaching Fellow and Digital Materials Writer.

Heather Spence

Pre-sessional Associate Lecturer

Heather has been an English language teacher since 2007 and has specialised in English for Academic Purposes since 2014. Prior to joining the Pre-sessional team at the CLIE in 2021, they taught in Japan, Slovakia, Germany and in the UK at the University of Bristol and University of Dundee.

Heather completed the CELTA in 2008. They have a BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry with Pharmacology from the University of Dundee and an MSc in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from the University of Stirling. Heather became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2019.

Thomas Hayward

Pre-sessional Associate Lecturer

Thomas started writing teaching materials for the CLIE in 2021. He has over 10 years’ teaching experience, including at UCL, the Freie Universität Berlin, the Berlin School of Economics and Law, and the University of Sheffield. He has also worked as an IELTS Examiner for the British Council.

Since graduating with a First in German and History (University of Sheffield), Thomas has completed a CELTA, and an MA in Applied Linguistics with TESOL (Distinction, University of Sheffield).