Knowing that sentences, not words or sounds, are the basic units of language, teachers must concentrate on these. Far too much time has been devoted to studying inflections, to mastering paradigms, as if anyone ever communicated in them. The typical utterances of a language must be mastered, and the optimal pedagogical means for this achievement must be sought. People everywhere expect nonnatives to use a formal, even slightly stilted form of speech, and language teachers must design their courses accordingly. As noted above, an important reason for some knowledge of linguistics is self-protection.
L are scientists, always working on the edge of knowledge.
Scientists also commonly teach in the borders of their own ignorance. Still more unfortunate is the discarding of gains of the past. Even before the flourishing of the structuralists, French language teachers knew and applied phonetics, as a result no doubt of the French orthographic system. Today, sadly, one finds students of French who are taught nothing about sounds and their production. The aversion to phonology has also had a disadvantageous effect on the language laboratory.