When you say “low accent”, my question is a “low accent” from what? In my way of thinking an accent that’s close to what’s used by the majority of English speakers around the world is the best. That accent would be anything from the so-called “neutral” western and mid-western part of the US or Canada. A Texan accent would not be that accent. Still, there are more Texans than Australians in the world (Wikipedia, 2000), so Texans aren’t as small of a group as one might think.

One thing that’s making it easier for many Texas as well as Irish and Australians is that all three groups diverge quite a bit less from the accent dominant on TV than they did 50 years ago. A teacher whose speech is fairly close to “standard” won’t have too many problems at most schools.

In my buxiban program, on the other hand, phonics is the primary part of the curriculum in the first semester. Any non-rhotic speaker would have a very difficult time teaching in my program. The students who are absolute beginners already have a very difficult time without the accent on the phonics sections of their CDs being completely different from the accent used by the teacher giving them phonics quizzes.

It may be of interest, though, that one of my partners in the school is a British guy. He teaches the advanced classes and writing classes. Since his classes aren’t focussed on phonics, there are very few problems. His students are also much more advanced than mine are. Several have lived abroad, and others have studied for 5 years or more. He has mentioned being a bit frustrated at occasionally having to use a more American sounding “short a” in order to be understood, though.

Regardless of the language in question, speakers of less dominant dialects tend to be more familiar with the dominant dialect than visa-versa. You could have made the same argument with German, saying that it’s better to hire teachers who speak Swiss German than teachers from Germany due to the fact that they “can understand and explain the difference of sounds and words” between the two dialects. However, most students would be better served by acquiring phonics and diction that match “standard” German as closely as possible.

“Due to mass media, the British, Australians, and other English speakers understand US English much better than Americans understand other English dialects.”

So you are saying it is better to hire someone who has less understanding and knowledge of English accents than those who have a wide range of knowledge and understanding?

It’s better to hire someone who ONLY understands American TV shows rather than someone who can understand (and explain the difference of sounds and words)the Young Ones AND Friends? Come On!

“American speakers are wealthier on average than other English speakers. The amount of money English speakers control is a crucial reason, if not the reason so many people around the world study English. There are more native Spanish and native Mandarin speakers around the world, but as they represent smaller markets to sell to and do business with, neither of those languages have achieved anything close to the dominance English has.”

If they only want to go to the US fine, but really!

What about your second point? I’m assuming you aren’t suggesting studying the accent and grammar of low-level Japanese learners of English or something like that. What do you think would best prepare students to be able to understand mistakes made by other non-native speakers?