communicative advantages of familiarity with varieties of english

Given that the overwhelming majority of native speakers of english do not speak the so-called standard variety or varieties, lack of familiarity with features of non-standard varieties of english may impede communication between efl students and native speakers of english. according to some estimates, less than 10 percent of the population of uk speak rp (received pronunciation), which is the standard british accent, the rest of people speak english with regional or social accents. a similar situation exists in america. on the other hand, since most audio and video teaching materials are based on these two standard varieties of english, efl learners do not become familiar with authentic english spoken by the majority of native speakers of this language. this poses serious communication problems for efl learners and may lead to failure in communication. therefore, it is essential for efl students to develop awareness about varieties of english, though for receptive purposes only. in this presentation, first the two main standard varieties of english (british and american english) will be presented and then variation within each of these two varieties will be discussed. however, since all features of language variation cannot be covered in a short conference presentation, this talk is restricted to pronunciation differences only, which is the main source of communication failure for efl learners.