We are studying linguistics this semester, and this is a necessary part of your preparation as a future teachers of English learners. Other ESL programs involve more linguistics courses, and if you ever go on to get your masters, there will be more linguistics involved.
However, do ESL teachers need to be linguists? This goes along with our previous discussion about why study linguistics, but here I really want you to talk about how knowledge of linguistics helps (or doesn’t) the actual teaching of English. Many argue that it doesn’t do any good to teach non-native English speakers linguistics, so what’s the classroom benefit?