Word stress plays an important role in intelligibility and deserves to be studied in all English classes – not just pronunciation classes – and by all students regardless of their general language proficiency levels. Teaching word stress can occur as part of any lesson provided that the teacher is empowered with the theoretical knowledge of word stress and the enthusiasm to teach it. Less proficient learners should be made aware of word stress whereas more experienced learners can better cope with learning rules associated with word stress. Of the rules discussed in this article, phonological similarity may be the best one to start with as early and late bilinguals pick this up well.