What variety of English should we teach?

Abstract

Being exposed to different varieties of English through modern media today, students often pick up and bring into classes substandard or archaic types of pronunciation. Another reason for the outdated inappropriate models is didactic time lag exemplified in classes by elderly teachers. In spite of the wide spreading of EE, RP still ranks high and remains the favoured norm for teaching purposes. But the ongoing changes in RP, on the one hand, and the fast spreading of EE, on the other, make it necessary to introduce modern RP to students and, furthermore, to qualify the status of the changes into the one to be taught as a modern norm and the changes listed for recognition and intelligibility.