John Trim passed away on 19 January. John worked together with the Council of Europe for several decades and strongly supported the establishment and the further development of the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML). His commitment, his vision for language education and many features of his educational philosophy inspired generations of language professionals worldwide and provided invaluable contributions to the development of language education. He will be sadly missed.
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John was a world renowned expert in the field of phonetics, linguistics, language didactics and policy. He was director of the Council of Europe’s Modern Languages Projects from 1971 to 1997, overseeing developments ranging from the Threshold Level to the Common European Framework of Reference.
After his graduation in German, John Trim occupied several positions in the field of university education and research. He notably taught phonetics and set up the Department of Linguistics at Cambridge University, lectured and conducted seminars in some 40 countries, and acted as director of CILT (Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research) in the United Kingdom. He was also actively involved in many professional associations (British Association for Applied Linguistics, International Association of Applied Linguistics, Association for Language Learning). He was an Officier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques (France) and held honorary doctorates from the Universities of Dublin, Prague, Wolverhampton and Oulu. He was the author of numerous published books and articles. John was awarded the Council of Europe Pro Merito Medal in 2005 for his services to language education.
John donated his personal collection of books and documents (more than 3200 resources) relating to his lifetime’s work on languages to the documentation and resource centre of the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) in 2004. The collection focuses on the work of the Council of Europe conducted between 1971 and 1997, studies related to the development of the Threshold Levels and the Common European Framework of Reference, and pedagogical resources.
On behalf of all those who worked with him at the ECML we would like to express our deepest sympathy to John's family.