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The ‘accent’ criterion was considered the least important: the mean score for this criterion was 3.14, ranging from a minimum score of 1 (‘not important at all’) to a maximum score of 5 (‘very important’). Table 4-11 below shows that 42.8% of the participants perceived accent to be of at least moderate importance as a hiring criterion, compared to 39.3% who though it was not important. The diverse responses are

reflected in the standard deviation score of 1.38, which indicates an average variation within the responses of the 56 participants.

Point on the scale Frequency Percentage

1 Not important at all 7 12.5%

2 Relatively unimportant 15 26.8%

3 Somewhat important 10 17.9%

4 Moderately important 11 19.6%

5 Very important 13 23.2%

Total 56 100%

Table 4-11: Distribution of the evaluation of the accent criterion

Although ‘accent’ was the recruiters’ least important criterion with a mean score of 3.14, it is still considered somewhat important. In comparison with the findings of relevant research, in this study the accent of the applicant seems to be slightly more important to the Saudi recruiters than it was to American or British recruiters:

Mahboob’s (2003) results revealed a mean score of 2.86 while the mean score obtained for ‘accent’ in Clark and Paran’s (2007) study was 3.11. As table 4-9 shows, the

‘accent’ criterion had the second highest variation among the responses of the participants (SD= 1.38) after ‘nationality’. The figures presented in table 4-11 above clearly explain this high score by showing that 24 participants perceived the accent of applicants to be of at least moderate importance as a hiring criterion while 22

participants perceived it to be not important. Therefore, in their evaluations of the importance of the accent criterion the participants were divided almost equally into two camps. The interaction between the bio-data of the participants and their perceptions of the importance of the hiring criteria is further investigated in section 4.6.

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Within the camp that considered the accent of applicants as being not important in making hiring decisions were two participants who were included in the eight

interviews. Their tolerance of the accents of teachers seems to emphasise the

importance of the intelligibility of the applicant over that of his accent, and it may also indicate their awareness of the issue.

Researcher How about the accent of the teacher?

C14 Normally … ah.. we know that standard accents are better and I like the American accent but anyway they should not be a big deal.

Researcher How about the accents of non-native teachers?

C14 We never had problems with their accents - you know most of our teachers are Arabs so the students are familiar with their accents, especially the Egyptians.

The second participant, who is clearly quite tolerant regarding the issue of accents, links the accents of NNESTs to their identity as speakers of other languages.

Researcher The accent of the teacher is not important at all to you, why is that? C48 Well! They cannot do anything about it, can they?

Researcher What do you mean?

C48 I mean we know that English is not their first language just like us [Saudis]! I bet we sound to them the same way they sound to us! I think if we focus on their training and qualification, enthusiasm, student appreciation… we would have teachers who do the job right! Because they can do training and teaching but they cannot do anything about their accent.

The recognition of the link between accent and identity shown by the participant in the above extract is interesting and worth promoting, since everybody speaks with some sort of accent, as many scholars point out. Lippi-Green (1994) and Flynn and Gulikers (2001) note that the most important thing when it comes to non-natives’ accents is intelligibility. However, the views of other participants who were less tolerant of the accents of the NNESTs could probably be partially explained by the findings of Jenkins (2005: 541). She studied the attitudes of eight NNEST speakers towards their own accents by asking them individually how they would feel if someone thought that their accent was a native accent. She found not only that they all preferred having native accents, but also that they wanted “a NS identity as expressed in a native-like accent” because the participants perceived a native-like accent to mean a good command of

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language and thought it would bring them greater success in their careers. Taking into account the facts that the recruiters in this study were all non-native speakers and that the majority of them considered the NES criterion to be important, it might then be possible to compare them with the participants in Jenkins’ (2005) study in their favouring of native speakers, expressed in their statements that they favoured native accents. This means that because they like native speakers to teach in their departments, they may be less inclined to favour the accents of NNESTs.

During the interviews, the participants from the other camp, who thought ‘accent’ was very important, varied in their reasons for assigning importance to this criterion. One of the participants (C29) who assigned high importance to accent believed that teachers’ accents are vital to the students’ learning because they “teach them good pronunciation indirectly”. This is similar to the justification given by another participant (C34) who found accents to be good examples of the “correct pronunciation”.

Another recruiter (C26) who found accents important argued that native accents (like the American accent) attract students who are used to hearing these accents in films and on TV shows. He did not mention which ‘American’ accent he was referring to since there is a plethora of accents in the USA. Nonetheless, even native speakers have been shown to have varying attitudes towards these American accents (Labov, 2001).

More importantly, the familiarity of the American accent, as mentioned in the justification given by participant C26, is the result of a process of familiarisation by the media. This shows that if the same was to be done with other varieties of English, there could well be more tolerance, by students in particular, towards other varieties,

especially the well established World Englishes.

One possible reason for these justifications of ‘good’ and ‘correct’ pronunciation is that the participants might be subscribing to the ‘standard language’ ideology (Milroy and Milroy, 1985), which promotes an idealised version of the language and suppresses language variation (see chapter 2, section 2.6). Moreover, the participants’ link between native speakers and ‘correct’ and ‘good’ pronunciation would only be troubled by the variation within the native English speakers themselves in terms of accent. Indeed, there is a plethora of ‘native’ accents that are anything but ‘standard’ including Newcastle’s ‘Geordie’, Liverpool’s ‘Scouse’, Glaswegian, and many more. The participants in this study who consciously or unconsciously subscribed to the standard language ideology therefore probably assume that there is one correct pronunciation and that the rest are

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incorrect. And of course they want the best for their students, i.e., applicants with ‘correct’ pronunciation.

Another respondent (C11) considered accents important because of a previous experience where the teacher had a heavy accent and was not clearly understood by the students. Discussing their personal experiences as recruiters, Flynn and Gulikers (2001) note that when they hire teachers, the primary concerns regarding NNESTs are with their accents and fluency. They assert that these accents should not interfere with understanding and that they should be intelligible to both native and non-native

speakers. They argue that having an intelligible accent is of great help to NNESTs, since they will be expected to teach speaking and pronunciation as well as writing. Thus, recruiters will be looking for a teacher who is willing and able to teach both skills, putting at risk the employment potential of those who have unintelligible accents.

One has to agree that this issue of intelligibility should be taken into consideration as a factor when making hiring decisions. However, it should be remembered that this could apply to native speakers as well as to non-native speakers. As a matter of fact, some native accents are extremely difficult for other native speakers to understand. Braine (2010: 15) gives the example of a conversation he had with an Australian air- traffic controller who had such an unintelligible accent that he was “desperately trying to read his lips in order to respond to him”.

Scholars like Lippi-Green (1994) and Braine (2010) have noted that everybody speaks with an accent and that these accents are part of the identity of speakers, whether native or non-native. In the case of native speakers of English, accent may be

determined by the geographical area or social class to which speakers belong. In the case of non-native English speakers, the accent may well be related to their mother tongue. In light of this, Braine (2010: 19) argues that the important point that should be considered is intelligibility rather than accent. This is also evident in the interview extract quoted above (C14), where the participant is clearly emphasising intelligibility. Even in the second extract, the participant (C48) seems to be implying a similar notion of overlooking the way NNESTs sound and of focusing on more important criteria, such as qualifications and training.