The article declares the primary importance of oral communication and the consequent need for teaching pronunciation at all levels of foreign language acquisition. The view is augmented with cognitive, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic arguments. The notion of “pronunciation”, however, should be interpreted in very different ways depending on the learning objectives and the types of learners. The main duty of the teacher, who is not always a qualified phonetician, is defined as constant attention to the sound form of the foreign language in question and in introducing authentic (audio) materials into the classroom. Taking English as a foreign language as an example, the extent of phonetic information relevant for different types of learners is discussed and some types of phonetic exercises and activities are described.