 What are linguistics and phonetics and why do I have to bother about these disciplines? Doesn't it suffice for me as a student of English if I can speak English reasonably well? Shouldn't the study of literary texts be the main focus of language studies? These are questions you may have asked already, but have they been answered yet? Well, the introductory course linguistics and phonetics would try and do so. It'll show not only that linguistics is a fascinating discipline, but also that the teaching of a language without a profound background knowledge in linguistics and phonetics is virtually impossible. The course starts with an overview and then provides you first with all phonetic details necessary to understand the oral auditory foundations of language, consonants and vowels, suprasegmental features and the relationship between phonetics and phonology. Using this background information, we then proceed with three core areas of linguistics, morphology, syntax and semantics. Before the principles of phonetic transcription conclude this general overview of the central areas of linguistics and phonetics and their most important topics. Note that this course is supplemented with a second part, which is target group specific. One part for bachelor students who might want to focus on linguistics in further semesters and one part for teacher students who need to apply the principles of linguistics and phonetics to language teaching more specifically to the teaching of English as a foreign language. The whole class is organized in such a way that the online content serves as a prerequisite for our in-class meetings where we will practice using a wealth of exercise material. To realize this ambitious goal of teaching and learning, we need a special approach towards education. Whereas in traditional teaching, content delivery and content acquisition are realized in class where several dozens of students have to gather at the same time to be entertained by their teacher. In our case, content acquisition is now self-guided. That is, you do the job on your own. However, we provide you with the learning material, text, animations, quizzes and videos all packed together to so-called virtual sessions on the virtual linguistics campus. And in class, there is now no longer any sort of frontal teaching or lecturing. All we do is practice, discuss, play educational games and so on. And people like me are no longer your teachers, but what we are more is we are coaches, that is, people who help you in achieving a deeper understanding of the content. This inverted classroom concept requires that you not only attend our in-class meetings, but also that you attend them well-prepared and to guarantee this preparation, each unit contains a test, the so-called mastery worksheet, where you can check your knowledge. So the procedure for you is go through the virtual session of a learning unit, pass the mastery worksheet and then attend the respective in-class meeting. Students who adhere to these recommendations will have no trouble passing the final exam. Those who don't, however, will run into severe trouble. So my advice is clear. Stick to our recommendations and enjoy the exciting fields of linguistics and phonetics and join our lively in-class meetings. I'm looking forward to meeting you in linguistics and phonetics.