Generative grammar, as generally presented, is complex, abstruse,
formula-intensive, and forbidding to lay persons--not surprising since
much of the work is done by math types who are strangers to clear
writing.
We shouldn't assume, however, that the subject is closed to others. I
teach a required college grammar course to education and English majors,
and the model we use is generative. Many, if not most, students enter the
class with low expectations (often with outright dread). On the first day
I always enjoy "betting" my students that at the end of the
course they will write on the anonymous course evaluations that the
course was fun for them. In the great majority of cases, I win my bet. To
their surprise, students find they like the course, say they learned a
lot, give high evaluations, and develop a love for grammar.
One strength of a generative approach is that is tries to create a model
not just of sentence structure but also of how we actually produce those
sentences. Because the available generative texts didn't meet my
students' needs, I wrote my own. The book's approach is generative, but
with methodology taking a back seat to content: learning the grammar of
English.
As a former primary and secondary teacher, I've always believed a
generative approach is adaptable to high schools and even the lower
grades. I've had a long-term goal of creating a high school text, but
other book projects and administrative duties have always intervened. I
hope someone else creates such a text. It wouldn't be for everybody, but
grammar teachers would benefit from a choice of approaches.
Dick Veit
University of North Carolina at Wilmington
Discovering English Grammar, 2nd edition:
http://www.uncwil.edu/people/veit/DEG/