The systematic description of varieties of English, native and non-native, is steadily gaining momentum in contemporary sociolinguistics (c.f., e.g., Kortmann and Schneider 2004, cf. also Schneider 1997a,b; Labov, Ash and Boberg 2005; Burridge and Kortmann 2008; Kortmann and Upton 2008; Mesthrie 2008; Schneider 2008). English has long been identified to be a pluricentric language (Clyne 1991), and more recently linguists have been paying increasing attention to the use of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), as there is widespread agreement about the fact that "the vast majority of verbal exchanges in English do not involve any native speakers at all" (Seidlhofer 2005a: 339, b; cf. also Jenkins 2005). Cook (2003) points out that it is communicative language teaching, an approach based on the introduction of the concept of communicative competence by Hymes (1972), that still remains "the dominant orthodoxy in progressive language teaching" today (Cook 2003: 36). This also means that 21st century speakers and learners of English need to be linguistically, sociolinguistically and pragmatically equipped to be able to communicate with native and non-native speakers of English from various regional, social and cultural backgrounds (Bieswanger 2007: 405). ELT, broadly defined by the Oxford University Press ELT Journal as "the field of teaching English as a second or foreign language", is thus currently facing new challenges in a changing and increasingly globalized world.