ABSTRACT
A great deal of what has come before in this book has at least implicitly to do with teaching and learning Englishes. While large numbers of people across the world presumably “pick up” English or otherwise learn it on their own, there is not much that our profession as such can do about that; so our topic here is more or less formalized teaching and learning (see Hinkel and Fotos, 2002a, for an insightful discussion of the link between theory and practice in the classroom). It is safe to say that all such language teaching proceeds from a somewhat idea-
lized base. We do not teach English as Spoken When You Are Really Tired, for example. When we are guiding learners in their becoming proficient in English, we try to take into account what they want the language for and who they will use it with. Previous discussions here (Chapters 3 and 4) have sought to dispel any notion that there is an English that is universally acceptable and useful, thus the world Englishes instructor will always be aware of variety and variation. If I were imported into India to teach English to call-center employees of an American company, then it would be quite reasonable for me to guide my students to approximate American accents and locutions. If I were teaching in a less specifically tasked environment, such as in a public university, then my expectations would necessarily be quite different. And it works both ways: my students would be trying to imitate me more closely in the first situation, but would in some sense have to work around me in the second.
