I had an ICAO level 6 assessment signed by a british national JAA examiner, only to be turned down by another JAA member state where my license originated, because they used their own standards.
Are there different Englishes
...for sure!
The most frustrating to me is not the accent of a foreign operator, not even the difficulty in pronounciation from a non-English native, it is not even the non standard phraseology, no. It is the people who THINK they can speak and understand proper English, and speak as fast as possible, just to sound like you know what you're doing. In international operations, they are often the ones with the strongest accents, the poorest vocabulary, and the wrong attitude.
You can get a poor English speaker with a standard and slow speech, or a fluent, proficient speaker, maybe non standard, but with resources in vocabulary, making sure the message gets across as intended.
The report does not mention, the barriers to communication when some national language ATC controller REFUSES to speak English, until you threaten him to squawk 7600 and write a safety report. Talk about occupying the frequency! This happens for real, more than once. Try China for non standard...
