Claire Cuminatto

Claire is responsible for the first year of UEA’s French Honours degree (Post A-level 1/I and 1/II and Ab-Initio I modules). She also teaches French in modules open to students from other Faculties such as Beginners' French. She has an interest in linking French language learning and Employability, for example in the Professional Applications seminar of French Honours III. She favours group work in all her classes, and often uses Collaborative Learning interactive patterns to structure interactions between students.

Claire coordinates UEA as a DELF exam centre (the DELF are diplomas awarded by the French Ministry of Education to prove the French-language skills of non-French candidates). 

Claire is Associate Dean for Employability in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. She manages the Faculty's employability strategy, leads cross-school employability initiatives, chairs the Faculty Employability Executive and ensures that this forum operates as a means of facilitating sharing of ideas and resources on employability between Schools. 

Prior to being Associate Dean, Claire was PPL’s Employability Director for many years and worked on embedding career development within the School’s curriculum. Claire initiated and ran PPL's Professional Practice scheme, whose aim is to build bridges between academic and professional worlds whereby students in a selection of PPL modules produce work which is sent to external organisations.  

Claire started her career in France, as a qualified Modern Foreign Language teacher, and taught in schools in the region of Lyon.  Having taught English before teaching French enhanced her sensitivity of how the two languages cut out reality differently, and where similarities and differences can hinder or facilitate acquisition in the case the English learners.

She started teaching at UEA in 2011, first as an Associate Tutor, then as a permanent lecturer from 2012. The modules she teaches focus on French Language Acquisition, from subsidiary to advanced level. 

-Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Practice (PGCERT), University of East Anglia, Norwich, 2012-2014

-‘Diplôme universitaire’ (University diploma) in FLE (Teaching French as a Foreign Language), Stendhal University / National Centre for Distance Eduation, Grenoble, 2010/2011

-‘Certificat d'aptitude aux fonctions d'enseignant du second degré dans les établissements d'enseignement privé sous contrat’ (qualification to teach in French private secondary schools), French Institute for the Training of Teachers, 2009/2010

-Master of Arts in English Literature, History, Translation and Linguistics, Jean Moulin University, Lyon, 2008-2010

-Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, History, Translation and Linguistics, Jean Moulin University, Lyon, 2004-2007

Second Language acquisition.

Employability in Higher Education. 

Second language acquisition and employability.