‘ If we only focus on one model, it’s harder to survive outside the classroom’: where should students stand when English is not only British and American?

English has become a pluricentric resource, challenging British and American norms in English language teaching (ELT). This study examines how Thai university students position themselves toward World Englishes (WE) and what pedagogical practices they propose for integrating linguistic diversity. Semi-structured interviews and reflective journals with 15 English majors at a multilingual public university in southern Thailand were analyzed through qualitative content analysis. Findings reveal a complex negotiation of legitimacy and practicality. Many students framed exposure to diverse Englishes as indispensable for intelligibility and adaptability, while others problematised it as incompatible with Thailand’s exam-oriented structures. Thai English (TE) emerged as both a resource for identity and a site of vulnerability under native-speakerist ideologies. Participants critiqued tokenistic inclusion of non-standard varieties and called for systemic reform, including curricular integration of multiple varieties, experiential learning beyond classrooms, and assessment focused on intelligibility rather than native-speaker norms. Significantly, students developed justice-oriented discourse framing English variation as a matter of power and equity, demonstrating learner agency in conceptualizing authentic WE integration. The study highlights the gap between student orientations and institutional practices, underscoring the need to reconfigure Thai ELT to normalise linguistic plurality, legitimate localised Englishes, and promote linguistic justice.