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This unit was basically linguistics 101; phonetics, phonology, intonation, etc. are all integral parts of a linguistics education. Thus, I was very familiar with most of this unit's material already. I agree that stress and intonation are areas that are widely neglected, and I believe that is because they are not exactly essential when interacting with native speakers, as the native speakers are likely to automatically fill in any blanks or correct any mistakes mentally. Pronunciation, however, is very important, so knowing the basic anatomy of how sounds are formed in the mouth is extremely helpful in teaching pronunciation to students. The students' native language may not contain a sound that English has (ex. labiodental fricatives do not exist in Korean except for words borrowed from English), so charts and visuals are good teaching tools. English orthography is not phonetic at all, so being able to help students read those phonetic scripts is important as well. It makes me happy to know that a basic linguistic training is emphasized for English teachers, and I hope that many use it in the classroom.
