I'll jump in the fray as a community college teacher and former student
who detested grammar (only had it in French and German classes, though).
Lanugage is one of the primary ways we mark community, so, for students
like mine, language is what can give or deny them access to community.  I
find, like Jim Dubinsky, that my students want access to EAE and feel a
great sense of accomplishment when they finally have a metalanguage.  I
felt that same sense of accomplishment, and I bet most of you have too if
you think back a ways.
 
On the other hand, why can't we cherish varieties of language the way
Shakespeare, Dickens, and Twain cherished them?  Do we have to be so darn
binomial here!  I think it's important to encourage students' ears, to
revel with them in the diversity of a language.  However, it is just as
empowering to give them the option of choice.  (As I write that last
sentence, I'm aware that with that expanded vision comes some sorrow and
heartache and perhaps estrangement from one's culture, a phenomenon many
have written of.  So maybe it's not so easy.)  Practical solutions anyone?
 
Jeanie Murphy