“No aspect of human behavior is more complex than language.” - David CrystalOne could argue that because multilingualism has been around for ages, there is no need to make changes when it comes to the curriculum of foreign language teaching. The British linguist and author David Crystal, however, points out in a talk with the British Council Serbia in Belgrade on 9 November 2013 that it is important to always keep in mind that “three quarters of the world’s population is bilingual. To be monolingual is the exception around the world.”[8] In this regard the linguist also points toward the fact that the conditions in which teachers work today have changed.
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“If you have been teaching your students that there is only one kind of English and that is British English and the only kind of accent is Received Pronunciation which is the accent of the queen […] and you say that’s the only kind of English you’ll hear out there, you are going to be so wrong. Because only 2 % of the population of England speaks RP.” [8]
“If you let your students go away thinking that is the only accent and dialect in the world then you’ve done them a disservice. What you’ve got to do is improve their listening comprehension and reading comprehension form the very beginning, you’ve got to expose them to as much of the variation that exists in English as it’s possible to do.” [8]