Professor Silke Mentchen
College positions: Fellow, Director of Studies in Modern and Medieval Languages, Joint Director of Studies in History and Modern Languages (Part IA and Year Abroad), Tutor
University position: Senior Language Teaching Officer
Subject: German
Group membership: Governing Body, Tutors and Pastoral Team, Libraries Committee, Development Committee, SCR Catering Committee, Special Events Committee, Wine Committee
Professor Silke Mentchen is a Senior Language Teaching Officer in the Section of German and Dutch and a Fellow and College Lecturer in German at Magdalene, she is Director of Studies for MML students.
Professor Silke Mentchen, a graduate of Cologne University, has been teaching German as a foreign language at all levels in tertiary education since 1994. She is one of two Senior Language Teaching Officers in the Department of German and Dutch, within the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages.
Silke is in charge of the Cambridge German Network, is the Faculty’s adviser for the Prince’s Teaching Institute, the Faculty’s coordinator for whynotlang@cam and the Department’s coordinator for HE+. She organises the Sozialgeschichte lecture series for Part IB in the Department and is currently the Faculty’s Director of Outreach and School Liaison.
Silke teaches and examines at all levels, with a special interest in translation studies and beginners' language courses. She has developed online material, both for the Faculty’s teaching of translation , and for potential students of languages, see here for examples: German modules for HE+ and Just-in-Time Grammar, as well as online A2- and AS Level material for Villiers Park.
Together with a colleague, she has published Upgrade Your German (Routledge, 2003), a German grammar exercise book, and articles on the methodology and pedagogy online resources.
Research Interests
Silke has presented papers at the IDT (Internationale Deutschlehrer Tagung) twice, on using CALL and on using metaphors in foreign language teaching. She is currently the organiser of a workshop on multilingualism funded by the Cambridge DAAD Research Hub.
KEY PUBLICATIONS
Speed up your German: Strategies to avoid common errors, Silke Mentchen and Annemarie Künzl-Snodgrass – Taylor and Francis, 2017
'Just in time Grammar: eine Zwischenbilanz', Silke Mentchen and Annemarie Künzl-Snodgrass, in Sabine Dengscherz, Martine Businger & Jaroslava Taraskina (Hg.), Grammatikunterricht zwischen Linguistik und Didaktik. DaF/DaZ lernen und lehren im Spannungsfeld von Sprachwissenschaft, empirischer Unterrichtsforschung und Vermittlungskonzepten (2014), pp. 237-52
'Just in time Grammar: Writing an online programme', Silke Mentchen and Annemarie Künzl-Snodgrass – Body, Space and Technology Journal, 7/2 (Brunel, 2008)
Upgrade Your German, Silke Mentchen and Annemarie Künzl-Snodgrass – Routledge, 2003
Silke Mentchen and Annemarie Künzl-Snodgrass have also developed online A2- and AS Level material for Villiers Park and Just-in-Time Grammar, an online grammar programme.