How important are accents?
I'm a Filipino and have been an English teacher here in Thailand for many years. As a Filipino we can talk to or teach our students with different kind of accents but the question is 'does the accent really matter in education? Some people want to learn what they feel is the correct accent but they don't know how to read, write or construct sentences, especially how to spell simple words. And how many native speakers here in Thailand are really educators? They can teach because English is their mother tongue but "do they really know how to teach and handle the kids? Are their kids learning from them?"
Bella