Spelling in an American accent

Sometimes I end up in conversations about what it's like to have Australian kids in an American school. One thing that's come up has been spelling lists centred around certain phonetic sounds.

Here a list that came home today, it is supposed to have the same sound in all the words:

octagon
taught
pause
bought
awful
often
broad
dolphin
watch
author

I'm not sure if all Americans say all these with the same "aw", but we Aussies sure don't. I taught my boys to read at home using an Australian phonetic system, I'm really glad I didn't use an American system, I would never have coped!

Nevertheless, this isn't a big deal. These spelling words can be learnt, even if they don't fit the neat categories they are supposed to!

What other challenges do you think an Australian might have in an American-system school?