The choice of a pronunciation model for the 21st century learner has become a major issue of
debate among applied linguists concerned with teaching English. The standard pronunciation
models - Received Pronunciation and General American - have recently been confronted with a new
proposal of a Lingua Franca Core (LFC) or English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) put forward as a
didactic priority in teaching English pronunciation to foreigners. This volume which includes
selected contributions from the Poznan Linguistic Meetings of 2003 and 2004 does not intend to
present yet another model but sets out to place the teaching and learning of English
pronunciation in the context of the 21st century. As the needs of English users are clearly
changing fast in the globalizing world the question is to what extent if at all models of
pronunciation have been able to keep up with them and whether they in fact should do so. Thus
key issues in the integration of pronunciation into English as L2 curricula are explored.
