This study studied the accent perception of a group of non-native pre-service EFL teachers in Hong Kong in order to see whether native English norm is of their preference for teaching and learning. Results found that participants all preferred traditional native English as learning model and seemed to have overlooked the principle of intelligibility, even there had been calls for using lingua franca core as learning model. Results show that participants all preferred using native English to be the model of teaching and learning. Among all the native English varieties, participants preferred the accent from the United Kingdom though not all could identify the accent they preferred. The study showed there was a mismatch between what the participants preferred and their ability of identifying accents of different kinds. Copyright © 2018 Academy Publication.

As a result of the global presence of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), it has been argued that learners of English should be exposed to a range of varieties of English, rather than a single variety of English, so that they can be better prepared to communicate with other people in ELF communication. However, little is known about second language (L2) learners' perspectives on exposure to multiple accents of English in the English Language Teaching (ELT) classroom. This paper reports on a study that investigated the views of L2 learners of English concerning exposure to different accents of English in the classroom. Data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey at a university in Hong Kong. The analysis revealed that these L2 learners showed rather ambivalent attitudes towards exposure to different accents of English in the classroom. While many participants seemed to be aware of the value of exposure to different native and non-native accents, there was less than wholehearted support for such a proposal in practice because of a number of pedagogical and practical concerns. Implications of the findings for classroom teaching are also discussed.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2014.936869]

Exploring how local English as a Second Language secondary students aware of the existing localized Hong Kong accent of English, the author finds that an extremely high proportion of students prefer the speaker who use Received Pronounciation.