2 Towards an inclusive standard Sri Lankan English for ELT in Sri Lanka: Identifying and validating phonological features of Sri Lankan English of Tamil speakers Dinali Fernando University of Kelaniya Karuna Sivaji University of Jaffna Introduction This paper reports on a study that investigates the views of teachers of English in the Northern Province on the unique phonological features of Jaffna English, a variety of Sri Lankan English (SLE) that has its own unique syntactic, morphological as well as phonological features (Selvadurai 1983, Saravanapava Iyer 2001, Sivapalan, Ramanan and Thiruvarangan 2010). The main research area of this paper is World Englishes in the context of English language teaching (ELT), focusing on variation within SLE phonology. This paper will first discuss the current issues in ELT in Sri Lanka that underscore the study. It will then discuss the relevance of existing studies of SLE pronunciation in an ELT context. Next, it will describe the methodology of the present study. Following the presentation of its findings and discussion, the paper will conclude with a consideration of the study’s significance, its limitations, and suggest directions for further research. While this study is limited to the segmental features of pronunciation, this paper uses the terms “pronunciation” and “phonology” interchangeably to mean the way in which sounds are produced in a language. 17