[How to teach].

Like many phonologists, I teach for a living, and a certain amount of what I teach is beginning generative phonology, for an undergraduate audience. Aside from its own inherent rewards, teaching at an elementary level can be useful in forcing one to give thought to matters that are important but not necessarily active topics in one’s own research. In principle, a beginning course should teach the ideas that are truly fundamental, that are least controversial, and that prepare students to go on to more advanced work. Deciding what these ideas are is hardly a trivial matter.