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Living in China, I was curious to discover that many people there were actually pretty familiar with IPA, I assume it's taught as part of advanced language learning, to cope with all the very different sounds in other languages. On several occasions people expressed great puzzlement that I had no idea how most IPA symbols were pronounced.

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I'm pretty sure IPA is the de facto standard for conveying English pronunciation in textbooks around the world, not just in China.

What do foreign language textbooks in English-speaking countries use to teach pronunciation?

Almost all textbooks and dictionaries use their own transcription key, I haven't come across plain old IPA in language learning textbooks, only in linguistics textbooks.

IPA was in use in every German high school book for English or French in the 1980s. I have no reason to believe it has changed, but I haven't used any since then.

Using own systems I have seen in very naive tourist guides and in text books by English speaking publishers.

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