An interesting trend??

I have been asked recently to teach or find teachers for both summer and long term teaching - but specifically for teachers with English or Australian accents.  I have been told (by different 'headhunters') that they are finding the USANian accent too 'hard' for students to understand.

Has anyone else noticed this or is it a sheer happenstance?

I get the same thing...but in reverse.
I've had many, many clients specify North American teachers only, telling me that the Pommier variants are too hard to understand.

No idea what gets people in a region preferring one strain over the other. Maybe it's whichever group has a larger business presence in a region.
Or maybe it's whether the first foreigner to throw up on them in a bar was Canadian or Australian.

 In these parts it's North Americans who get preference. English people are generally acceptable but Ozzies and Irish are generally considered impossible to understand in these parts. A number of schools here actually prefer Africans to Australians because they "have the standard pronounciation."

 I think it's simply a matter of the teachers schools have had experience with. If they had an Australian teacher who spoke too fast and didn't modify their speach...then said teacher has obviously stereotyped their whole country as "hard to understand". Same for any other country.

 It's really unfair that a country with such a low English level would pass such judgement on native speakers and equally unfair that one bad teacher can sour an entire school against hiring someone from that country again.

In South Korea it's the "North American" accent that tends to be preferred. When I worked there I had two schools begging me to help them recruit Americans and Canadians. One of the schools I didn't bother to help because I wasn't even happy working for them and the other took a lot of convincing to hire the Kiwi they settled on. I had to remind them of the lady's qualifications, how she conducted herself in telephone interviews, and the professional nature of her questions about the school and its materials, etc. They were happy with her (she stayed on for two years) but it was an uphill battle. They actually wanted to hire a guy from Canada without a degree. He simply had the blond/blue eyed/young look and the boss only saw "no visa hassell and photo op" in the kid.

In Taiwan I worked for one school that would only hire Americans, Canadians and Kiwis. I found that interesting and when I asked the laoban how they came to that preference I was told, "We prefer a north American accent. We had a teacher from Australia and the students couldn't understand him." She talked about nearly losing all of the buxiban's adult students and had to let the guy go because the loss in revenue was not justifying his salary. The school was in a small town, so, desperate without a decent prospect from North America she settled on hiring a Kiwi. The Kiwi left her with a good reputation and enrollment was up. I was the hiree who replaced the Kiwi when he went home, and from what I heard from the students they were happy with the guy. When I was leaving she had me conduct the interviews, and despite having an in-person application from a couple from South Africa - who had teaching experience - the only other buxiban in town had an Afrikaneer and their business was bad so she used that to justify not hiring the couple (despite them being in-country).  I liked working for that school but I had my fill of the odd demands for hiring and she ended up using a recruiter.

She eventually found the new teacher: An Ozzie! 

To be honest, I've yet to see any online placements specifying, "Australian accent preferred," in any way, shape or form. Most seem willing to consider any native speakers.

In nearly a decade of working overseas I never once heard a preference for the "Australian accent," and only some ill-informed opinions/rationalizations against it (and it was really the exception rather than the norm.) The only prevalent trends were "North American English preferred."

I will site this though: I talked to a surprising number of British nationals who opened buxibans in Taiwan who had an agenda and would only hire fellow nationals.
 

Most Chinese Hirers wouldn't know one accent from another. They go by what they read on the passport. Besides, which USAnian accent do they prefer???

Besides, which US accent do they prefer???

My experience with what lots of ESL bosses call the "North American accent" is something similar to what you'd hear from people like Wolf Blitzer, Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, etc. to give an easily accessible frame of reference. Hear them out of character and that's a reasonable approximation. In mainstream American media there is a push for that "upper mid western" accent in announcing, news reading, etc.

Perhaps that is what drives the odd stereotype abroad?

Similarly, I ask what's an "Australian" accent? Steve Irwin? Colin Hay? Paul Hogan? Gary McDonald? There's some latitude of difference between those individuals.

The sad reality is one cannot claim to be competent in English unless they can handle the accents.

In regards to Taiwan and China: for people who speak 4 tones, there are some odd perps on the fringes in the ELS industry who have serious issues with the tone-simplistic English vernacular. 

I had a few schools tell me that I was the preferred applicant because I was from the US.  And I even had one school increase the salary from 6000rmb to 10000rmb (private language school, I didn't accept) just because I was American.  I guess it all depends.

Well, we're just worth more...simple as that.
And the correct answer to the question: Steve Irwin. Definitely. Although Paul Hogan is considered "acceptable".

But seriously, the stereotyping here really is a bit insane. And sad. I've seen school owners try to talk me out of hiring a particular (Caucasian, American) teacher simply because "We once had another teacher who looked a little like him, and he was a lot of trouble for us."
So imagine how thick it gets when race and nationality start to come up...

Often it's not "accent" at all, but the international profile of that nationality. How many Chinese do you know who can really tell Glasgow English from Kansas-hua, for eg.
Often, schools have had good experiences with teachers of X nationality, so using local logic decide that  teachers of that ilk must be good' uns. That was the experience in my jobs anyway.
As for company work, the myth that US English is the way to go must be disappearing faster than the North American Rupiah US Dollar. Maybe soon there will be a push to employ Indian [as in "Golly Gosh," not "white man speak with fork tongue"] English teachers. I worked with one: a fine lass, clear diction, and with a billion relatives at home.

Standard English accent: that of your first FT.  If your first laowai laoshi had an australian accent, understanding a Yank is tough.  I get it, too: when i moved to Suzhou the different Chinese accent really threw me, and my Dongbei twang confused the crap out of the locals.

And there is the quick conclusions folks jump to.  My first school refused to ever hire Australians because the first two they tried were assholes. I've since heard of a school that wouldn't hire Canadians for the same reason.  Which feeds my belief that if you're an asshole, it should be your countymen's responsibility to disappear you.

  Which feeds my belief that if you're an asshole, it should be your countymen's responsibility to disappear you.

 
I can see it now, Vigilante FT Death Squads (VFTD) Will the Canukistani squads wear T-shirsts embazoned with a large mounty red maple leaf?

I can see it now, Vigilante FT Death Squads (VFTD) Will the Canukistani squads wear T-shirsts embazoned with a large mounty red maple leaf?

It's not the shirts to worry about. It's the tuques that you should keep an eye out for.

I have heard most complain about the hoganlander accents, unfairly.  I also have heard that Canadians have the most "neutral" accent (obviuously they haven't heard many Canadians speak English).  Strange really.

Now to find my tuque ...

When I first arrived in China, I was teamed up with a father/son team. The gent was born in Ireland and lives in Perth. His son was born ans raised in Australia. I'm from Toronto. On the second day he asked me, "Do all Canadians sound like you?"

Told him no, I'm the only one who speaks normal, everyone else has an accent!

Anywho, like any country, different parts of Canada also has distinguishing accents. If you speak with a Newfie (people from Newfoundland) you'll require either a translator or a hard shake of the head.

You mind repeating that DD. Didn't quite catch it.