Standard English is the variety used in English foreign language teaching; it is the variety used in EFL textbooks and dictionaries. However, there is at the same time an increased awareness of variation in English because of the status of English as a global language, in particular for pronunciation (Timmis, 2002). Which varieties of English are used in the classroom in Norway? In the revised national curriculum for English that comes into effect from August 2020 we can see a mixture of competence aims that align with use and understanding of both Standard English and other varieties. For Year 7, competence aims state that students should ‘follow rules for spelling, morphology and syntax’ but simultaneously ‘listen to and understand words and expressions in adapted and authentic texts’. For Year 10, one of the competence aims states that students should ‘listen to and understand words and expressions in varieties of English’ without specifying which ones (Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, 2020). This means that we should be able to find standard and non-standard varieties of English in texts used in the classroom. In addition, the curriculum stresses the importance of the English subject’s contribution to intercultural and identity development – but only if the students are using Standard English? In this contribution, we want to identify the teachers’ views and their awareness of varieties of English in the classroom. Data come from interviews with 5 English teachers in a primary school in addition to classroom observations of interactions between teacher and students. Our first impression is that the teachers in general have difficulties distinguishing between variation in English and ‘errors’. The study is part of a large project on multilingualism in the English language classroom in Norway with emphasis on how multilingualism is used as a resource for teaching and learning English.