English today is one of the most hybrid and rapidly changing languages in the world. New users of the language are not just passively absorbing, but actively shaping it, breeding a variety of regional Englishes, as well as pidgins and English-lexified creoles. Also, as in an increasing number of countries English is becoming an element of core education, a near-universal basic skill, native-speaker norms are losing both in relevance and in reverence. This unique linguistic phenomenon has immediate consequences for the language classroom. (Contain 4 tables, 11 figures, and 40 footnotes.)